Google is working on a new messaging service to take on Facebook’s digital assistant ‘M’, according to a report from the WSJ. This may be incorporated in its chatbot technology that answers questions inside a messaging app, says the report. This will let users switch between texting a friend and asking a chatbot for suggestion for a place to eat, by searching the web and other sources, in the same thread.
The report also says that Google will likely allow outside developers to build chatbots to run on the service, similar to how Facebook has an app store within its Messenger app. WSJ reports:
Instead of typing a query into Google’s search engine, users will send questions as text messages, to which chatbots will respond. Google would steer users to specific chatbots, much as its search engine directs users to relevant websites.
Currently it is not clear when Google will launch the service, or what it will be called.