Google adds AI features to G Suite, including ‘Smart Reply’ for Hangouts Chat
Editor's note: This story has been updated with information about the number of G suite users and Prabhakar Raghavan's title.
SAN FRANCISCO – Google is adding new artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to G Suite as it aims to attract more users to its cloud-based productivity apps.
There are now 4 million organizations using G Suite, which includes tools such as Docs, Sheets and Gmail; the that’s up from 3 million paid customers a year ago. (For reference, there are 135 million monthly paying users of Microsoft’s Office 365, though the comparison is not an apples-to-apples comparison.)
Google hopes that incorporating AI in its workplace productivity tools will help give it an edge over its main rival. Smart Reply, which was unveiled for Gmail two years ago, is now accessible within Hangouts Chat, the text-based collaboration tool that serves as Google’s competitor to Slack.