Allo, Google’s AI-enhanced answer to ‘smart messaging’ on mobile,
is here. Designed to keep users from straying outside the app to search for things
on the internet, Allo is the first Google product to feature its AI
“assistant.”
Suggestions from the assistant are meant to be conversational, and
can be plugged into existing conversations or had between you and Google alone.
Google is expected the start rolling out the assistant to other products this
fall, starting with Google Home, as part of the company’s ongoing push toward
AI. Allo comes on the heels of Duo, Google’s video calling app, which has been
downloaded 10 million times since it was released last month. Taken together,
the two represent Google’s attempt to grab some of the direct messaging market
while integrating machine learning across its suite of consumer-oriented
products. “We don’t see messaging as a solved problem,” said Nick Fox, Google’s
vice president of communications products. Fox said Allo is about “getting
things done right in your chat. We think the enabler here is AI.”
Fox stressed that the goal of Allo is to keep the automated
suggestions simple and subtle, so as not to replace other apps or search
generally, but rather to supplement them. Like Duo, Allo uses your cell phone
number, so there’s no need to create a separate user account. Allo does
associate with your existing Google account, however, giving it access to a host
of personal information, such as images you’ve saved with Google’s cloud photo
storage. The more you use the assistant, the more it learns about you. Once you
tell Allo your favorite sports team, for example, you can recall news about the
team without using its name. “Google has been a one on one experience for 18
years,” Fox said, adding that with Allo, “now it’s like multiplayer.”
When you turn Allo on, it asks for your location. This gives it
the ability to search for things you might be likely to ask it for, such as the
weather or nearby restaurants. Allo retains the context of a conversation when
you query it , mimicking an actual conversation you’d have with a friend. Let’s
say you invite someone to dinner via Allo, and your friend asks the assistant
to find nearby restaurants. Both users would see the same results, and if one
person wanted to see just the restaurants that are open or those with the
highest rating, for example, the assistant would filter down results
accordingly, all within the app itself.
The assistant gives two types of results. The first is what you’ve
come to expect from any search engine, and includes basic information on the
subject you’ve asked about. Beneath that is a row of suggested information
based on what you asked, when you asked and what you’ve asked in the past.
Throughout the app, results are doled out in “bite size snacks,” Fox said.
Think of results less like a comprehensive Wikipedia page, and more direct
responses to the question you’ve just asked. In addition to quickly surfacing
web results, Allo lets you respond to messages with pre-determined phrases that
are common replies to questions or prompts. So if your friend sends you a
selfie, for example, an automated reply might be “What a great smile.”
Forbes.
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