Apple’s Predictive Emoji and Emotions in the Frictionless Web

At the WWDC Keynote this week Apple announced it was opening up its messaging space to third party developers. Within iMessage users will soon have the ability to engage with rich content such as video or music, access more stickers and larger emoji, pay for tickets, or reserve a table for dinner without leaving the conversation. iMessage will also offer “emojification,” or the ability to predict and transform words within a message into corresponding emoji with a single tap.

 iMessage’s expansion of emoji and emojiification tool may seem cosmetic, but they are significant for Apple as emoji are called upon as essential tools for building relationships and in communication. Our research found that 64 to 70 percent of respondents use emoji because it helps them be understood. In addition, 49 percent of respondents indicated emoji help them create better personal connections.

 Certainly Apple is borrowing upon the success of leaders in the messaging space, such as Snapchat, Kik, Facebook and Viber, by loading iMessage with in-message integrations. Asian messaging platforms, such as WeChat and LINE, already deliver a range of services to local consumers to meet their needs and preferences in addition to a vast range of emoji and stickers.     

It’s commonly understood that digital communication loses nuance and tone because it’s not taking place face-to-face or via phone. Now Apple, and recently Google with Allo, are adding in different ways to create and share messages to make up for that loss of nuance. With chat as the most popular way to communicate our desires and needs, there will be an even greater reliance on using emoji to complete context in conversation. Influencers in the messaging industry and members of the media have recognized and written that “chat is the next great operating system.” If so, that would support the notion of emoji being the leading method of communicating emotion on the Internet and making them the most practical method for obtaining consumer sentiment. 

Already an emoji has been declared word of the year, and our research found that emoji are in use by 92% of the population. In fact, the growth of emoji use skyrocketed after Apple launched the emoji keyboard on iOS in 2011. 

While on stage at WWDC, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi quipped after showcasing “emojification” that, “Children of tomorrow will have no understanding of the English language!” If every joke has a kernel of truth, then this comment should be more closely regarded. Already Professor Vyv Evans, a linguist at Bangor University, has stated that emoji's rise to prominence is comparable to hieroglyphics. According the Moore’s Law the average teenager today communicates 10x as much digitally as does the previous generation, and 100x as much as the generation preceding that. Add to that the belief that linguist Neil Cohn asserts about how "humans as a collective species are programmed to use visual communication,” and we can then begin to grasp that the emoji are still the most human and vital part of our digital communication.

Messaging offers a channel through which it can become challenging to tell what’s human and what’s bot – a daily Turing test. By integrating emotion and digital emotional cues, such as emoji, it will likely decrease the friction of consumer interaction with AI. However, it’s likely that service oriented integrations will find swifter adoption within the messaging channel than others, such as retailers versus transportation apps like Uber.