Gboard using on-device AI to suggest relevant GIFs, stickers, & emoji as you type

Abner Li | Nov 12 2018 - 10:34 am PT

For the past several months, Gboard has been working on a “smarter” search feature that analyzes what you type to surface relevant expressive content. Gboard AI suggestions is rolling out starting today to suggest GIFs, stickers, and emoji.

Gboard already features universal lookup to “search all media,” including emoji, stickers, and GIFs. While access to this is only a button press away, Google wants to surface relevant content without requiring users to manually search.

Starting today, Google’s keyboard will “use AI to suggest GIFs, emoji and stickers to you related to your conversation.” When you enter a phrase, like “Good morning,” that has an obvious media counterpart, the ‘G’ logo in the top-left corner of Gboard’s suggestions strip will morph into a “GIF” button.

Tapping will automatically open universal search with the phrase you typed already populated in the field with relevant emoji, stickers, and GIFs displayed for quick insertion.

According to Google, Gboard will suggest more types of content in the future. In recent weeks, we saw the feature work with other terms like names to automatically begin a Google Search.

On-device machine learning is leveraged for speed, with suggestions processed privately on your phone or tablet. The feature is rolling out globally in English today. It will be available in more languages over time.