Google readying ‘Help me write’ AI for ChromeOS [Updated]

Kyle Bradshaw | Aug 24 2023 - 11:02 am PT

Building on the company’s ongoing momentum on generative AI tools, it seems Google is readying an AI writing and editing feature for Chromebooks.

Update: We can now all but confirm that Google is preparing to launch its “Help me write” AI onto Chromebooks.

Google is no stranger to offering AI-powered features aimed at improving your writing quality. Today, you can find professional-oriented tools like “Write for me” and “Help me write” in Gmail and Google Docs, while even the consumer-focused Google Messages recently picked up a “Magic Compose” feature that can either rewrite your first draft reply or draft a reply based on conversation context.

As showcased by the AI focus at this year’s I/O conference – and in the months since, with announcements like Project IDX – anything that Google can reasonably apply generative AI to, it will attempt to do so.

Based on our latest research, one of the next Google products to gain AI integration may be ChromeOS. Earlier this year, we showed that some Googlers, in the wake of Bard’s launch on the web, were working to integrate the chatbot into Chromebooks, but this effort has long since fizzled out, at least in public code.

More recently, the company has been actively working on a project that, curiously, has at least five codenames associated with it, the main three being “Orca,” “Mako,” and “Manta.” Needless to say, the level of secrecy surrounding the project piqued our interest.

From what we can find, “Orca” will primarily appear in ChromeOS’s right-click menu but only when editing a body of text. When selected, Orca will open the “Mako” UI in a “bubble” over your screen.

According to the code, Mako has three core tasks. Firstly, it can “request rewrites” of a particular piece of text, presumably requesting an AI-rewritten version of what you’ve typed. Secondly, it can offer a list of “preset text queries,” which we assume, in the context of generative AI, to be example prompts for how to ask for a certain style. Lastly, Mako can “insert” the rewritten text wherever you were originally typing.

As you’d expect, though, this AI rewriting process doesn’t happen locally on your Chromebook. Instead, “Manta” seems to send your original text and prompt to Google’s servers, which send back the AI-enhanced version. Of course, just like Magic Compose and Google’s other AI writing tools, you need to explicitly consent before any of your writing is ever sent to the company’s servers.

Notably, given all of the misdirection Google has employed with this new ChromeOS feature, nothing in the code has explicitly said that generative AI is involved. In fact, the only direct clue we’ve gotten to the purposes of Orca, Mako, and Manta is a lone mention of “Copy Suggestions.” While that may initially sound clipboard-related, we believe “Copy” is used in the sense of “copyediting” or “writing copy.”

Given that context and Google’s current company-wide AI focus, it seems highly likely that ChromeOS is preparing AI suggestions and rewrites.

Update 8/24: A recent code change has effectively confirmed our suspicions of this being an AI writing tool for Chromebooks. In one place, the feature is given the name “CHROMEOS_COPY_EDITOR_WRITER,” while nearby code lays out the different styles you can choose when asking to rewrite your text.

Shorten
Elaborate
Rephrase
Formalize
Emojify
Unspecified (perhaps “I’m Feeling Lucky”)

These line up almost exactly with the options available in Gmail’s “Help me write” AI, which is currently being tested as a Google Workspace Labs experiment. As such, we feel confident in saying that Google will be launching “Help me write” as a major AI feature for Chromebooks in the very near future.

What makes this particular instance of AI assistance interesting to us is that, by being directly incorporated into ChromeOS, it will be available to improve text written in almost any app. Whether you’re writing a reply in Google Messages for web, drafting a social media post, or talking with friends on Discord, this AI assistant would be just a click away.

As for when Google may intend to launch this probable AI tool for Chromebooks, it seems the absolute earliest it could arrive is with ChromeOS version 118, scheduled to arrive in mid-October. That said, these things take time, so it may take a few additional months to fully launch.

Additionally, we’ve seen signs that Google may intend to make Orca/Mako/Manta exclusively available on Chromebook X devices. First uncovered earlier this year, Chromebook X is an upcoming effort from Google to meaningfully distinguish good-quality ChromeOS hardware from affordable, student-oriented models.

However, as the Chromebook X program has some minimum spec requirements and only some existing devices will be upgraded to the new experience, this could mean this potential AI tool may not be made available to most current Chromebooks.

This article was originally headlined “Google appears to be readying an AI writing tool for ChromeOS”

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