Allo, the messaging application that Google debuted last year didn’t leave such a lasting impression when we took it for a spin but one thing did stand out though: Assistant. Google Assistant is the smart chat bot baked into Allo that uses Artificial Intelligence to offer preset automatic replies that more often than not are pretty much accurate alongside other nifty things like being witty through and through and fetching information when one needs it.
However, besides Assistant, Google has done little to show us the true potential of Allo and its bot ecosystem. Sure, the company is doing all these cool things by having Allo front and centre on smartphones like the Pixel (and several upcoming ones) but we have seen the kind of stuff bots can do on a messaging application of Allo’s caliber thanks to what Facebook is doing with Messenger.
Google knows that and it is why we now have the first bot on Allo since the debut of Google Assistant: the Lucky Bot.
In a chat, call up the bot by typing @lucky and then the search term for the GIF you are looking for and voila! Like here (see below image), I am trying to tell someone who lags behind the news most times who the current President of the US is using GIFs:
The Lucky Bot’s mission is simple: to avail as many GIFs to you as possible and, hopefully, spice up your otherwise boring chats (assuming you were still hanging around Allo talking to imaginary people).
Truth be told, the Lucky Bot just made me have a chat on Allo for the first time in months. I guess I’ll be checking the app quite often now if not for anything just for the awesome GIFs.
It will be interesting to see what kind of bots show up on Allo in coming days as the potential is so huge and could totally change our perception of the latest messaging app from Google.
