Google announced their new feature for the Inbox application (an alternative app for Gmail) known as Smart Reply this week, the handy office assistant in every email.
As if the industry wasn’t already flooded with predictive apps, Google’s new feature reduces the pain of email response to a mere pinch. Smart Reply does exactly what the name implies, replies to emails for you. In reality, the feature judges the content of the message a user receives and displays three suggestions for the user to pick. Judging from user responses, the feature is disturbingly accurate with the suggestions.
Smart Reply was developed using the same neural technology utilized by Google to develop voice search features. This technology allows devices to learn and improve predictions, and so Smart Reply has the ability to improve its accuracy with email responses as people continue to use it. Also, much like how email platforms have the ability to separate spam from useful mail, Smart Reply can “learn” based on what responses the user chooses frequently. This feature is only available on the smartphone version of Inbox.
The predictive app market is currently being dominated by apps such as Siri, Cortana, and even Google’s own Now. Judging by the new focus in the tech industry on predictive applications, apps such as Siri and Cortana probably won’t be lagging behind anytime soon.
The developers and engineers at Google have blogged about the long history of research that has led to this project and how it has inspired them to experiment with the unusual art of conversation.
What could this mean for the future? It may not look groundbreaking and fresh to some people at the moment, but it is hard to disagree that this is a relatively big step for voice and language technology. Not only does this push the envelope for current predictive apps, but it also acts as another step towards broader technologies in the future.
The feature is currently only available in English and will be publicly released by Sunday, November 8.
