One exciting generative AI announcement out of I/O 2023 was Magic Compose in Android’s Messages app, and Google is now starting to roll out the feature to some beta testers.
How to get Magic Compose in Google Messages
Magic Compose was originally supposed to enter beta this summer, but Google is now ready to slowly launch it in a limited manner with three aspects to eligibility:
- You have to sign-up for the Google Messages beta program on the Play Store, with the company officially recommending that you do the same with Carrier Services.
- This beta is currently only available “in English on Android phones with US SIM cards” for those 18 years and older.
- Lastly, Google will give priority access to Google One Premium members “as more spots become available.” The upcoming Google Search Generative Experience will be available in a similar manner.
That subscription tier starts at $9.99/month (or $99.99 annually) for 2 TB of storage. That plan also comes with Google Workspace Premium for extra Meet features and 10% back on Google Store purchases. Other features shared with the lower tiers include the Google One VPN, more Google Photos editing tools, and dark web monitoring.
Upon launching for the first time, opening an RCS chat and tapping the new sparkle icon in the text field prompts you to “Try it.” [Update: Google now tells us that there won’t be an email notification and that users will just see the Message Suggestions icon in conversations when it is live for them. Additionally, it remains to be seen whether this expands beyond RCS to SMS/MMS. That might change in the future, but that’s how the beta experience is at launch.]
How Magic Compose works
When activated in a conversation, Magic Compose will send up to 20 previous messages to Google’s servers to generate relevant, contextual suggestions. This includes emojis, reactions, and URLs, but not messages with attachments, voice messages, or images. However, “image captions and voice transcriptions may be sent.”
Google explicitly notes that these sent messages will not be stored or used to train machine learning models. After suggestions are generated, “Google discards the messages from the servers.” When you’re not using Magic Compose, “no messages are sent to Google.”
You’re presented with a list of suggestions, and selecting one will place it in the text field. Tapping the pencil with a sparkle icon lets you customize that suggestion or anything else you’ve written with one of seven styles: Remix, Excited, Chill, Shakespeare, Lyrical, Formal, or Short. Some are particularly heavy about inserting emojis, while you can thumb up/down suggestions.
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