SwiftKey today announced the world’s first keyboard for smartphones to make use of an artificial neural network for predicting and correcting language. 

SwiftKey says that its underlying Neural technology is based “on the use of neural networks, a subfield of artificial intelligence inspired by the structure and operation of the human brain.” In simpler terms, the company explains that its neural network takes advantage of enormous machine language data to “meaningfully capture the relationship between words.”

This understanding allows SwiftKey Neural to predict words that have never been seen in a given sentence context during the learning phase. For example, having seen the phrase “Let’s meet at the airport” during training, the technology is able to infer that “office” or “hotel” are similar words which could also be appropriate predictions in place of “airport”. Further, it understands that “Let’s meet at the airport” has a similar sentence structure to “Let’s chat at the office”. This intelligence allows SwiftKey Neural to offer the most appropriate word based on the sentence being typed.

SwiftKey claims that the launch of its Neural Alpha is a “breakthrough” as its marks the first time this type of language technology has been engineered and modelled to work on a smartphone.

SwiftKey Neural Keyboard is available an as early beta for all Android 4.4 KitKat and higher devices. The APK of the keyboard can be downloaded from here.