Google’s AI powered ‘Reply’ messaging assistant. One week in.

4 min readFeb 25, 2018

Around a week ago I heard Google had released a Beta version of an AI powered app called ‘Reply’, which lets you send short, contextual responses from within your notification bar. So far, I’d have to say it’s shaping up pretty good after one week, serving up relevant, useful responses with a single tap.

Beta launch screen, listing available apps (for now)

It’s a Beta version so ignore the wireframe appearance of some screens. The setup process is pretty straight forward once you’ve downloaded, set your permissions and allowed access to notifications. Once launched, you’ll be asked to link your Google account which is optional. I chose to use mine with the thinking it’s only further personalising my experience.

I’ve been testing it with my two most used messaging apps at the moment — WhatsApp and Hangouts. There’s more options such as Skype, Slack and Twitter with more likely to come.

Some responses might not quite suit your style, but I’ve been relatively happy with using the replies served up to me. For those seeking that precious extra few seconds it saves you time having to unlock your phone, open the relevant app and reply individually. It’s great for basic responses such as confirmations, agreeing with a statement, saying thanks or a simple Yes/No.

I was surprised at the smarts behind some of the options such as ‘Sounds yummy’, when a mate told me about a dish his wife cooks and ‘Safe travels’ when flight plans were mentioned. So far I’ve only seen 1–2 word replies. Emoji’s are also shown at times, in one instance a kiss emoji to my wife — did it know she was my wife? A little creepy but relevant nevertheless.

There are additional features that either weren't working or not available on my version such as maps integration e.g. replying with distance away or estimated time of arrival. The app didn’t quite handle multiple responses sent through at the same time, often taking the first message I received as the basis for response options. Now that you can respond inline within WhatsApp by highlighting a specific message, which I do a lot, I imagine future iterations of Reply might enable users to do the same from their notification bar.

Some additional features include automatic replies e.g. in a meeting, on the bike or my favourite — driving a car. I didn’t get the chance to test the driving option, but I could see it as a useful scenario to use the app’s intelligence to potentially stop drivers messaging whilst driving. I jumped on a bike in the gym and the app picked it up straight away, not that I would need this on a spin bike so hopefully movement detection in context will improve in future versions i.e. riding a bike vs driving a car. These are all optional so you can set preferences to your liking.