That Prisma, the photo app that uses Artificial Intelligence to transform ordinary-looking images into something that can easily pass for a priceless painting from the middle ages, is wildly popular is not in doubt. The app is still getting a lot of buzz over a month since it took the world by storm. As such, there is no shortage of Prisma clones out there. We’ve even seen video alternatives like Artisto.
Those aside, it is something else pretty much in line with the workings of Prisma that has caught my eye. To underscore the age we’re living in (where apps are thought to be on the decline and never expected to recover), it’s a bot. A bot that is available on the two messaging platforms I use every passing hour of the day: Facebook’s Messenger and Telegram.
The bot is called Icon8 and it works pretty much like Prisma or Instagram do when it comes to the application of filters. The only difference? That it is, well, a bot. Just that. There’s a limited set of effects that can be applied on one’s images but that doesn’t stop the results from speaking for themselves. On Messenger, one can even capture images directly from within the bot’s chat pop-up and have it process it immediately thereafter.
The best way to understand what I’m going on and on about is to actually give the Icon bot a spin and I recommend you do so. Icon8 is no Prisma as far as blowing you away with extraordinary results goes but it doesn’t take the same amount of time it takes one to hatch a Pokémon Go egg to process a photo as Prisma does.
