Google may be building chat bot-based messaging app

To challenge rivals like Facebook, global internet search engine giant Google may be building a new app that lets users chat with friends or message a chat-bot for answers.

With an intelligent twist, the app would be able to do everything that a normal Google search can, such as offering up answers and providing links to web pages, The Verge quoted The Wall Street Journal as saying on Tuesday.

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The report said Google was working on this new service for at least a year, though the launch date was not known.

Google does not have a successful messaging app and Hangouts has not been a success among the social-savy youth.

Reports also said this service was meant to directly compete with Facebook M, a bot that Facebook was testing in Messenger.

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Like Google, Facebook M automatically searches the web for answers to questions, but it takes that one step further: for more complicated queries, a human assistant will take over, allowing M to do things far beyond what a computer could.