Google makes Smart Reply available in ML Kit for app developers

Google has announced new natural language processing services for ML Kit. For example, Smart Reply is added to the kit so that app developers can make use of it. Smart Reply is now in Gmail, Hangouts Chat for G Suite and the Google Assistant.

ML Kit was unveiled during Google I/O in 2018. It is a machine learning SDK, which allows app developers for iOS and Android to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) more widely. ML Kit is based on Google’s mobile app development platform Firebase.

Five APIs were already included with the launch for common machine learning uses: recognizing text, detecting faces, detecting monuments, scanning barcodes and labelling images. In the past year, various new functions and possibilities have been added.

Now new functions are added to ML Kit, writes Venturebeat. These include Smart Reply, known from Gmail, which suggests responses based on the last ten messages exchanged. The model runs fully on the device and does not store any text data. Google claims to have worked closely with various partners to ensure that Smart Reply is ready for a wider release.

Language Identification

In addition, Google announced that Language Identification will be added to ML Kit. Language Identification is able to identify a language in a range of texts, and can distinguish 103 different languages. As a result, it is no longer necessary to ask a user which language he speaks. The new feature in ML Kit generally only needs a few words to determine which language to use. Responses are given within 1 to 2 milliseconds.

Smart Reply and Language Identification, like other services in ML Kit, are made available to developers free of charge. In all likelihood, new features will be unveiled during the I/O developer conference in May.