Google’s Gboard now recognizes hand-drawn emojis and predicts your next phrase

Google’s Gboard for Android is getting smarter with new updates that let you draw a picture of emoji with your finger via the emoji search box — Google then surfaces the emoji it thinks you’re looking for. Additionally, Google’s keyboard will now predict full phrases instead of just the next possible word.

The ability to recognize hand-drawn emojis is apparently based on the same technology used in Google’s AutoDraw app introduced a couple of months ago, which similarly turns your doodles into clean clip art.

The feature will come in handy when you are searching for a particular emoji but don’t know what it’s call.

Meanwhile, Gboard now also offers suggestions for phrases that you may wish to type next in real time. This is similar to other popular keyboard apps including SwiftKey, which was acquired by Microsoft last year. Past versions of Gboard were only capable of suggesting possible next words using predictive engines but this will surely be a big help for slow typists.

Alongside those enhancements, Google says Gboard’s search function will now show more results and also more easily link out to other apps like Google Maps and YouTube when appropriate. Google is also adding support for more languages — you’ll now get suggestions and swipable gesture typing for Azerbaijani (Iran), Dhivehi, French (Belgium), Hawaiian, Maori, and Samoan.