After the shutdown of Allo, it was only a matter of time before Google took the messaging app's few good ideas and implemented them in its Messages platform. The most important of these, Assistant's integration in chats, was inevitably going to make the jump, and today Google confirmed that the feature will go live in Messages over the coming months for English users.

Just like we expected it, you won't be able to talk directly to Assistant through a standalone chat or invoke it in other conversations by mentioning @google. Instead, Assistant will be working in the background and proactively surfacing suggestion chips when it thinks it can provide more details about the topics you're talking about, such as movies, restaurants, and weather. Select one of these and you'll get some answers that you can share back in the chat.

You can still call up Assistant as you would regularly by long pressing on the Home button, but if you do it while in a Messages conversation, one of the suggestion chips will be to share the answer back to your chat recipient(s).

Google is quick to point out that it uses on-device AI and that your conversations aren't sent to Assistant for proactive suggestions to pop up. It's only when you tap one of the chips that that specific query is sent to Assistant, and nothing else.

If executed properly, this can be a better implementation than Assistant in Allo. By staying invisible and using its predictive smarts, Assistant would become an unobtrusive helper in your talks, only chiming in when necessary. However, as with all things AI, this should be an opt-in setting, so those who don't want suggestion chips popping up on their screen everytime they mention the weather can disable them.