Google's Gboard can now predict emojis from your drawings and anticipate whole phrases

Google’s official keyboard app, Gboard, is an amazing option that has been steadily improving to compete head to head against the other top options on the market. The keyboard has used machine learning for a while now to predict the next word that you might want to type, and has more recently added things like inserting a google search or auto translating text right in your conversation. Google is still updating this application, and they have just added the ability to predict emojis from drawings as well as predicting full phrases based on what you have typed so far.

Now why would you want to draw an emoji when you can just swipe through the options? Part of me thinks Google is just adding it as a fun option and likely uses the data to better understand human drawings. They enacted a similar test to collect data back in November of last year when they had users draw images and tried to guess what they were through a game it called Quick, Draw!, and more recently AutoDraw, which uses AI to take your rough sketches and turn them into cleaner, Google generated drawings. If you can’t remember what an emoji is called and just know the shape, it could also be a quick option, so go try it out.

Another feature Gboard has added is the ability to predict full phrases instead of just your next word. This is incredibly useful, since it could theoretically predict your entire sentence after the first word. Typing has never been faster, and it would be great if we were able to send full messages in an instant.

The Android update for these new features is rolling out now, and Google says the iOS update is coming soon.