If you find the Smart Reply feature in your Inbox, Gmail, Android Messages, and Allo really helpful and convenient, Google wants to make your life easier by sharing the love. Their internal incubator group Area 120 is working on bringing that feature to other social and messaging apps, not just the ones that are made by Google. While the project is still in its early stages, it will be a great feature to have if it works the way it’s currently working in the aforementioned apps.
If you’ve never used Smart Reply in your life, it’s a feature powered by artificial intelligence that makes suggestions for automatic responses to messages and emails sent to you. It gives you mostly three options to choose from when replying and it depends on the context that the AI tech understands as well as what you often respond. It’s available in Inbox, Gmail, Allo, and recently, in Android Messages but only for those who are on Project Fi.
The Area 120 project is simply called Reply and the main goal is to bring the feature to other apps, even beyond Google. This will include apps like Hangouts, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Twitter DMs, and Slack. Android Messages for those who are not on Project Fi is also included. It will not be a stand-alone app but it will be integrated into the app so that people can quickly respond to incoming messages.
Aside from the reply feature, it will also add some other automated features like a Do Not Disturb mode, a Vacation Responder, and even an emergency feature to break through your silent mode. We cannot expect this anytime soon since it’s early days yet, but we can look forward to having it and making our life easier, at least when it comes to messaging apps.
VIA: Tech Crunch
