Google’s Gboard is already one of the best and smartest ways to communicate on a phone, given its direct link to Google search and all the company’s artificial intelligence-powered predictive and natural language capabilities. Now, with an update rolling out to the Android version of the app today, Gboard is getting even smarter. Google’s keyboard now recognizes hand-drawn emoji and will now predict full phrases instead of just the next possible word. The changes are expected to come to the iOS version at a later date.

This is all the work of Google’s ongoing AI research, which at a high level helps improve the company’s software by churning through mounds of data and learning over time using training techniques like deep learning and…

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