Google debuts Allo, an AI-based chat app using its new assistant bot, smart replies and more

Today at I/O, Google took the wraps off its latest foray into the world of communications: the company announced Allo, a smart messaging app supercharged with machine learning and Google's new Google Assistant service (its answer to Amazon's Alexa), giving users the ability not just to chat to each other with animated graphics and enlarging/shrinking text, but to call in Google (and later other third-party apps) to share media, plan events, buy things, and even think of what to say to each other. The iOS and Android app is being unveiled today, but it will only be live this summer, Google says. If you are a Google news watcher, Allo may not come as a complete surprise: back in December the WSJ reported that the company was working on an AI-based messaging app: this appears to be that very product. The app comes at an interesting time for Google. The company has made a number of attempts at building social products over the years, but products like Google, Wave and Buzz never really caught on at a time when other products like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat have taken off.