Nice Reply
Most agencies love to see their work launched. And in that sense, we’re just like the rest of them. Therefore it was smiles all around for us and Bold Scandinavia CPH when Google revealed Smart Reply as “another useful key feature” in the coming Android OS. See the announcement from Google I/O here.
Last year, we and our dear friends in BOLD worked with Area 120, a Google workshop for experimental products, on a standalone product called Reply. Through concept, identity, and product design we helped launch a test version of the app, that added a smart response toolbar to notifications on Android across OS and messenger apps — including third party apps. The automated smart responses — or replies — was contextually tailored through A.I.-powered technology to look at your location, your calendar, your current activity (biking, e.g.), etc.
Our concept video presentation looked like this at one point:
Once Reply opened for beta testing things escalated very quickly. It was also picked up in the press quite intensively. A few examples:
Techcrunch:
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/13/a-google-rd-team-wants-to-bring-smart-reply-to-all-your-chat-apps
Later Reply was shut down by Google, with a message to beta users saying that “Reply was an experiment.” We can add that it was a fun experiment.
Experiments being shut down is standard procedure in Google for products or features that will live on in other Google products. Actually, it’s seen as a success criterion.
https://9to5google.com/2018/10/10/area-120-reply-ending-experiment/
And live on, it now will. Launched inside Android OS. We love it.
