Google’s second Allo messaging bot is an AI-driven GIF generator

Google’s newest addition to its artificial intelligence-powered messaging app, Allo, takes a page from the company’s search engine. The new bot, called Lucky in what some surmise is a nod to Google Search’s longstanding “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature, lets you type a word or phrase in text and receive an applicable GIF. 

The bot works less like the all-purpose Google Assistant and more like a standard bot made familiar by apps like Slack. That means you can simply tag @lucky in any message thread followed by the phrase you’d like it to translate into GIF form. The bot then parses the text you provided and retrieves an appropriate animation. 

From my time with the bot on my personal Allo account, I noticed it tends to take a little while to respond to your first request. But Lucky becomes more responsive once you start a thread and start giving it requests. You can’t talk to Lucky in one-on-one chat. Instead, the bot starts its own conversation with you within any thread where it’s tagged. 

Lucky isn’t available for everyone right now. According to 9to5Google, the bot is showing up for some users but not everyone. However, the feature should be coming to all iOS and Android Allo owners in the coming days, so long as the latest version of the app is installed. When reached for comment, a Google spokesperson simply replied, “Jackpot! Looks like you stumbled across a new way to share GIFs in Allo. Lucky you!” And for the record, the Daft Punk GIF was Google’s touch, not mine.

The article was published on : theverge