Gboard for Android could soon feature AI-powered text-to-image generator, Google hints

(Image: AFP)

Google is reportedly working on integrating a text-to-image generator for Gboard.

As reported by 9to5Google, the latest beta version of Gboard for Android contained traces of code that mention "Imagen Keyboard". The publication found the code hidden in the latest beta Android Package Kit (APK), which is a file format used for Android applications.

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The Imagen AI system from Google is an open-source generative AI model that creates images from text prompts. It is similar to popular models like ChatGPT or Bard, except it specializes only in image creation.

OpenAI, creators of ChatGPT, also have a competing product in DALL-E 2, which like Imagen can create images based on requests. The report says that Google's data showed that people preferred the results Imagen gave them over DALL-E 2.

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According to the report, Imagen is also better at handling complex requests, long-form text, spatial relations, rare words, and unusual prompts.

Since it require a complete APK teardown to find the hidden code, it would suggest that the feature is still in the early stages of development, and there is a chance that it might not see a full release.