Google puts custom stickers feature in Gboard keyboard

Google has put a function in Gboard for adding personalized stickers. The software takes a picture of the face and uses machine learning to try to find out facial features and hair style, among other things.

Gboard then shows the stickers in the interface for emojis and stickers, after which users can send them as pictures in chat apps, among other things. The feature will be available in the beta of Gboard for Android starting Wednesday, and the feature will also be coming to iOS, Google says.

By default, the software creates three variants: a regular one, ‘Bold’ and ‘Sweet’, which the company has translated as ‘Decisive’ and ‘Cute’, with slightly different faces. After making them, users can adjust the face in the stickers to their own preferences on all kinds of points.

The stickers are a derivative of roughly the same function in Google’s chat app Allo. Apple, among others, introduced this fall with Memojis for iOS 12 on the iPhone X phones, while Samsung has AR-Emojis as a function on its Galaxy S9 devices.