Google Starts Rolling Beta Magic Compose Features On Messages Apps

Google started rolling out the beta version of Magic Compose. (photo: Twitter @GoogleAI ·)

JAKARTA - Google has finally started rolling out the beta version of Magic Compose, a new feature in the Messages app that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help write text messages. However, as Android Police revealed, this feature has one important note: up to "20 previous messages" will be sent to Google servers to generate suggestions - even if you use RCS with end-to-end encryption (E2EE).

Google describes these conditions on its Magic Compose support page, noting that these messages, along with attached emojis, reactions, and URLs, will be sent to their servers to assist AI in compiling appropriate responses.

The company also stated that there were no messages with attachments, voice messages, and images to be sent, but "image captions and voice transcriptions may be sent."

Google first launched E2EE on this app in 2020 and made it available for group chats late last year. Enable this feature means third parties - even Google itself - won't see your messages. While using Magic Compose with E2EE will send your messages to Google servers, the company insists that they can't actually read them.

Google spokesperson Justin Rende also explained to The Verge that "the chat data used by Magic Compose is not saved" and that "the suggested response results are not saved after being given to the user." Once you turn off Magic Compose, Google will not send your messages to their servers.

Magic Compose is only one of many AI-based features displayed by Google in the I/O show last month. According to Google, you can use this feature to reply to text messages with "response suggested with the style that has been determined based on the context of your messages." This feature is currently being rolled out to users in the beta program Google Messages.

If you have access to this feature, you will see the conversation icon next to the app message composer. From there, you can select the recommended response and continue rewriting the text using different preset styles, such as "chains," "encouraging," or "Shakespeare." This feature seems to be only available for RCS messages for now, and there is no information on when this feature will support SMS/MMS messages.

Microsoft also launched a similar feature in their keyboard app, SwiftKey. This feature allows you to select the Bing icon in the app toolbar to compile text messages and emails, as well as change the recommended tone, format, and length of messages.