The IITian who is taking on G-board with his AI-powered mobile keyboard

Ankit Prasad is using AI to come up with user-oriented autocorrect suggestions in 22 official Indian languages and 15 colloquial ones

The average Indian does two things immediately after buying a smartphone – first, he/she downloads WhatsApp, and then switches off the autocorrect. Be it any keyboard, including Google’s G-board, the autocorrect for regional languages delivers a bad experience.

Building one of India’s first native keyboards, Gurugram-based start-up Bobble AI is using artificial intelligence to come up with precise autocorrect suggestions in 22 official Indian languages, along with 15 colloquial ones. It also has options for macaronic languages such as Hinglish.

Unlike other keyboards, it suggests autocorrect according to the communication style of the user, instead of spelling or grammar. The app, which currently claims to have 25 million users, works on the behaviour of the user and also that of other smartphone owners in that region, and comes up with the most appropriate suggestions accordingly. Bobble doesn’t use any conventional dictionary, but its recommendations are based on research and data intelligence.

“G-Board is more of a utility keyboard, and has only recently started adding personalisation features. We, however, begin with personalisation,” says Bobble AI founder Ankit Prasad, an alumnus of IIT-Delhi. The user can create umpteen numbers of comic stickers and GIFs from their selfies on the Bobble AI keyboard.

The company, which was established in 2015 to add value in the smartphone experience, offers four levels of autocorrect – lenient, moderate, aggressive and switch-off mode. So, if someone is having a professional chat, the person could choose an aggressive mode whereas for an informal chat, he/she can use the ‘lenient mode’.

The keyboard also has a special feature around data security. As soon as a user types the credit card details and enters the password, the user interface flips to a secure mode which instills trust in the minds of the people.

The company, which is backed by marquee investors such as SAIF Partners, Xiaomi, and founders of Flipkart, MakeMyTrip, SlideShare, and 1mg, among others, has tied up with over 50 food and retail brands to monetise on its flagship bobble stickers. For example, if two people are chatting and one asks the other out for coffee, the coffee mug sticker would have the Starbucks brand on it. “There is a four times higher probability that a person will choose branded sticker content over non-branded one,” says Prasad.

Prasad, who has a keen interest in technology, was only six years old when he wrote his first software program, which was formally appreciated by the District Collector. He dropped out of his Masters course at IIT- Delhi in the final year to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions. During his graduation days at IIT Delhi, he won several major awards, including Best Fresher.

Challenging Google’s G-board and Microsoft's Swiftkey further, Bobble AI recently partnered with Xiaomi to develop the phone maker’s ‘Mint Keyboard’. The gadget will come pre-loaded with Xiaomi devices in India and Indonesia, to begin with, and later be launched for the rest of the world.

With over 25 Indian languages available on the keyboard, users can type in their preferred language. They can also apply personalised themes on their keyboards drawing on images from their gallery and using different fonts while typing.

Apart from these regular features, Mint allows translation within transliteration. For example, if a person is typing a sentence in English and the person on the other side is more comfortable in Hindi, the Mint keyboard will simultaneously transliterate it and send out the message in Hindi. “Imagine the opportunity of clean, crisp communication this opens up across generations,” says a Xiaomi spokesperson. It will also give real time emoji suggestions for Indic languages.

Currently live in India and Indonesia, the start-up will soon expand to South East Asia and West Asian countries. Over the next three years, it aims to capture 20 per cent market share globally and 80 per cent market share in Android keyboard in India.