Google is developing a series of AI-powered features for Android O

Why it matters to you

The next major release of Google’s Android operating system might use artificial intelligence to save you time.

Android 7.0 Nougat may be less than half a year old, but Google has already turned most of its development efforts toward its next version. On Tuesday, VentureBeat reported that the Mountain View, California-based company is working on three new features that will coincide with the release of Android O. They’re described as “intelligent,” and said to bring Android to parity with Apple’s AI-powered efforts on iOS.

One feature, Copy Less, will combine machine learning — software that self-improves without human intervention — and computer vision — software that extracts and analyzes data from images — into a labor-saving feature. According to VentureBeat, it aims to cut down on the number of times users have to copy text from one app to another.

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Take food, for example. If you’re having a Facebook Messenger conversation with a friend about where to have dinner and switch to Yelp for recommendations, Copy Less will recognize the context — it will “know,” so to speak, that you’re looking for a nearby place to eat, and use that information to save you time. Once you’ve settled on a spot and switched back to the chat interface, Copy Less will suggest relevant replies to your friend’s questions. If he or she asks for the restaurant’s address, it will serve it up.

Another contextualization feature reportedly in tow is address recognition. When you receive a message with a street address, it will recognize the text as an address — tapping it will show the address in Google Maps.

According to VentureBeat, the implementation will be similar to Gmail’s web app. When a date or time appears in the body of an email, it’s automatically underlined, and when you hover over the text, a pop-up menu offers the option to add the event to your calendar.

Google has already experimented with context recognition in the form of Now on Tap (now Screen Search), an Android feature that launched with Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Screen Search, once activated, suggests relevant links and shortcuts based on what you’re browsing. If you’re searching a Spanish web page, it will automatically translate sentences. If you’re on a band’s Facebook page, it will serve up quick links to concert tickets.

Google’s final major accessibility feature involves gestures. If you draw a letter C anywhere in Android, for example, a short list of contacts will appear onscreen.

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Google has toyed with the idea of gestures before. The Gesture Search app for Android provides gesture-based access to contacts, apps, and settings. And Google launched a gesture option on the web that lets you perform searches by scribbling in your phone’s browser. VentureBeat notes, however, that the gestures feature could be delayed or canceled.

Google is expected to unveil Android O at its I/O developer conference in May. If history is any guide, the search giant will release a series of work-in-progress developer previews ahead of a public launch in the fall.