Google is integrating a grammar-checking feature in its word processor app, Google Docs. The company has yet to announce the roll out date but is expected to arrive in the "coming weeks."
As hard as we try to, it can't be helped that sometimes we commit grammar mistakes in our emails, essays, or blog posts. A single slip has the potential to destroy your entire composition, which you may have worked on for hours.
While standard spell-checking tools may offer help in preventing you from committing grammar mistakes, they can only do so much.
There are dedicated extensions like Grammarly or Ginger, two of the most popular apps out there, which users can install in their computers. It's an extension, meaning it works separately with your word processor. If you are someone who appreciates a more streamlined writing system, then you'd be glad to hear what Google has in store for you.
According to reports, the tech company will soon be putting on live its grammar-checking tool in its G Suite app, Google Docs.
What makes this new product from Google different from any grammar checkers is that it comes in a form of a machine learning-based program, an AI, which is deemed more capable to carry out the function. Its algorithm is designed to recognize errors while providing corrections/suggestions as for the user types.
According to Google, their grammar checker can detect easy-to-miss errors when using articles such as "an" vs. "a," or mixed up words like "affect" vs. "effect." More than that, the AI can also identify complicated grammar issues such as the incorrect use of a subordinate clause.
In a statement from G Suite product management officer, David Thacker, Google is employing a "machine translation-based" system for the feature to function.
This means that the technology used to translate a language into another will work in the same way as the grammar checking.
"We take improper English and use our technology to correct or translated it into proper English," as explained by Thacker.
More features of the Google Docs grammar-checking AI have yet to be known. It remains to be seen, however, if Google will make the grammar machine available as an API for third-party developers to work on.
For the meantime, the new Google Docs program is available through Early Adopter Program as a pre-launch alpha test version.
To the public, Google has yet to confirm an exact launching date, but it is expected to arrive in Google Docs "in the coming weeks."
