Google's new messaging app is here.

The company is launching Allo, its AI-centric messaging app for iOS and Android that offers an early peek at some of its most robust artificial intelligence capabilities yet. First previewed during its I/O developer conference earlier this year, the app combines the best of Google's predictive and search superpowers along with an all-new personal assistant feature.

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At first glance, Allo looks very similar to many other messaging apps. You sign up with your phone number and after verifying your identity, the app scans your address book to find people you may know who are also using the app.

Beginning a one-on-one or group chat is fairly straightforward. In addition to the standard text messages, you can record a voice message, send a photo with a doodle (for Android only right now), or share a map to your current location. The app also includes a number of themed sticker packs you can use to liven up your chats.

The reason you'll want to use Allo is because it offers a hint at the AI-filled future Google envisions.

But none of that is why you'll want to use Allo. The reason you'll want to use Allo is because it offers a hint at the AI-filled future Google envisions. It's home to Google Assistant, the new conversational assistant that Google plans to bring to many more of its consumer products.

The first sign that Allo is a bit smarter than the standard messaging app is through a feature called Smart Replies. Throughout your conversations, the app will suggest words and phrases before you start typing. If someone asks "how was your weekend," for instance, the app may suggest "it was good" or "fun." Google has been experimenting with this type of technology for awhile — it rolled out a similar feature for its email app, Inbox, last year — and Allo's Smart Replies are surprisingly good. In my early testing, the automatically generated responses were useful more often than not, though they did occasionally miss the mark.

Allo's Smart Replies. Image: google

Even more impressive, Google has combined this feature with its photo recognition abilities, so the app is able to suggest responses to photos that are shared within your conversation.

But Smart Replies are just the start of Allo's AI savvy. More importantly, the app is Google's first opportunity to show off Google Assistant.

It's all about the Assistant

First off, a quick word about (the rather poorly named) Google Assistant. While you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a bot like those used in Facebook Messenger, Kik and other apps, Google Assistant is much more than a simple messaging bot, which tend to have a fairly limited set of capabilities. Instead, Google Assistant is much closer to Facebook's vision for M, the social network's own AI-based assistant. (Facebook M, however, is still limited to a small number of early testers and largely depends on humans to oversee its interactions.)

Google Assistant is still in a "preview" stage, according to Google, who plans to bring the feature to many more products in the future, like its smart speaker Google Home. But, preview or not, the feature is already more impressive than gimmicky.

There are two ways to interact with Google Assistant. You can chat with it directly — Assistant appears alongside your other conversations in the app — or you can call it up while you're chatting with friends by starting a message with @Google.

Google Assistant is baked right in Image: Google

In both cases, it can help with many things that you would use a quick Google search for (think translations, conversions, directions, flight statuses etc.) and even has a few extra tricks, like (again) photo recognition. I uploaded a photo I snapped on a recent vacation to the Mayan pyramid at Chichen Itza in Mexico, and Google Assistant quickly asked me if I wanted to learn more about Mayan history.

When you're in a chat with one or more friends you can use Google Assistant as a kind of shortcut to Google searches. Things that Google can do "natively" like conversions, simple Google searches and translations will appear directly in your chat while other queries will surface links to Google results.

You can call up Google Assistant directly in your conversations.

It may take a little getting used to — it feels a bit clunky to "ask" Google a question in the middle of a conversation — but it's actually pretty useful (and saves a lot of app switching.)

Google Assistant is even more useful when you get it one-on-one. There, in addition to everything else, you can ask the assistant about your calendar, set reminders and get the latest headlines. If you have an Android device, you can also set alarms, timers, search your photos and make phone calls via Google Assistant.

Allo's creators have also made sure that Google Assistant has the nerdy sense of humor we've come to expect from Google. It may not have Siri's dry wit, but it is more than up for a joke or two and you can even play a few games with it.

The "creepy" factor

Google's biggest hurdle with Allo may be convincing people that all this AI isn't creepy. While tech enthusiasts may think its cool that Google can recognize the photos I'm sharing, predict what messages I want to write, and help me make weekend plans, others may find it a bit creepy. But Google has made efforts to address the concerns of the privacy conscious as well.

Messages sent within Allo are encrypted by default, but don't use end-to-end encryption, a standard favored by members of the security community and privacy advocates. You can, however, opt for an incognito chat, which does use end-to-end encryption. These conversations can also include self-destructing messages and the ability to block new messages from appearing on your phone's lock screen.

Whether or not these features will be enough to persuade skeptics is another matter. But if Google can make its assistant feel more necessary than creepy, then it might win people over. While Google's future plans for the feature are so far unclear, it's already promised we'll see it in a lot more places very soon and that it will only improve and get smarter over time. And that certainly seems like a good start.