If you use Gmail or an Android phone, you’ve likely stumbled upon SmartReply. If you are new to this machine learning-based tech, then here’s a short explanation. Smart replies are short phrases and words that Google suggests to you when you are responding to an email or an SMS.
At DYT, we often use them. They are life-saving, especially when you are inundated with messages. So, we were stoked when Google announced that SmartReply is now available to YouTube Creators.
In case, we are the ones breaking the news to you, here are some answers you may be looking for:
Where is SmartReply offered?
The feature is currently rolled out on the dashboard creators use – YouTube Studio.
How does it work?
It uses the learning from preceding SmartReply products, like the one Gmail has, and couples it with tech that studied YouTube comments, which are usually full of slang, emojis, short forms and more than one lingo.
In Google’s words, the AI learns “comment and reply representation through a computationally efficient self-attention network, and represents the first cross-lingual and character byte-based SmartReply model.” To us, that’s just technical mumbo-jumbo that flies right over our heads. But if you’re interested in the process, give the official blog post a read.
What you really need to know is this: instead of spending time typing replies to each of your followers, you can simply click on the suggestion provided by the feature!
(source: GoogleBlog)
Which languages does it use?
Right now, English and Spanish are the two languages in which the SmartReply offers suggestions. But in the future, Google hopes to launch the feature of other languages too.
How does SmartReply help you?
Every creator worth their salt knows that replying to comments is one the best and easiest ways to engage with your followers. But the process is extremely time-consuming. Not only do you have to sift through all the comments to pinpoint which ones are worthy of a reply, but also write them out.
SmartReply takes care of both:
- It reduces time spent typing answers by giving you pre-written phrases.
- It displays suggestions for only those comments you are most likely to reply to.
Is SmartReply available for all comments?
Sadly, no. Currently, YouTube will show you replies for only those comments where the model feels it has a high chance of offering “sensible and specific responses.”
Here’s hoping SmartReply will be available for all vernacular languages used in India soon!
