Soon, Google Assistant will offer suggestions as you text
In a major move, Google has announced Assistant integration for Android Messages. The company has claimed that the messaging platform will soon get its smart assistant for further enhancing your conversations. It will offer useful suggestions to enrich your messaging experience, but won't read the exact content of the messages. Here's more on the new feature.
Assistant Integration to offer 'suggestion chips'
The new feature, when available, will show what Google calls 'suggestion chips' in the thread of a conversation. These chips would appear with an Assistant logo just above the text box, just like smart replies, and offer relevant information regarding the topic of conversation. Google says its on-device AI would offer suggestions, letting you share useful information from the web directly into the thread.
How this feature works
With this feature, Google says, your messaging experience will become more seamless. For instance, when you talk about a particular movie, Assistant will offer a chip related to that film, showing you information related to it - like showtimes and reviews. If you find any of that information useful, you would be able to tap and share it instantly.
Google claims your conversation aren't read
As the feature can raise privacy concerns, Google has clarified that Assistant won't read your conversation. It will offer suggestion chips through a local analysis of what you are chatting about and the only information that would go to Google is the chip you'd actually select and share. Also, the feature only detects three topics as of now: movies, restaurants, and weather.
When Google Assistant will start working on Android Messages
Google has claimed people using Android Messages in English will get Assistant support 'over the coming months'. The timeline is not exactly clear and there's no word on support for those using the platform in other languages. Notably, Google has been pushing Assistant everywhere; the feature landed on Maps recently and will also show up as a dedicated button on more phones.
Also, Google continues push for RCS messaging
The feature comes as the latest upgrade for Messages, which Google has been enhancing to switch to RCS messaging. Last year, the company upgraded Messages with features like web-support, smart replies, and GIFs. Plus, it has been working with telcos across the globe to enable the RCS protocol for adding capabilities like group chats, read receipts, and seamless media sharing into the app.
