Today Gboard for Android is getting an upgrade. In addition to our continued efforts to improve typing quality with machine intelligence, this update brings new ways to get creative and cut down text time.

In the emoji search box, you can now tap the emoji handwriting icon to draw emoji directly onto the screen. Your drawing will automatically be recognized and show results for your favorite emoji.?

To help you up your texts per minute, Gboard now includes phrase suggestions to predict what you plan to type next. For example, try typing “looking forward” and Gboard suggests “to seeing” or “to it” as you type. This is supported in English today and will be rolling out to more languages soon.

When you’re searching in the keyboard, we’ll now offer multiple results for you to browse through, making it easier to search and share in any app. In addition, on a card, you can click through to go to Maps, call a business, or watch a YouTube video. Just press the G or arrow->magnifying glass in the suggestion strip to start searching.

Finally, Gboard now supports more than 200 language varieties, and we’re also adding suggestions and gesture typing for Azerbaijani (Iran), Dhivehi, French (Belgium), Hawaiian, Maori and Samoan, and simple keyboards so you can type and text in Dzongkha, Ewe, Navajo, Tsonga, and K'iche'.

To test drive these updates to Gboard for Android, head to the Google Play Store and make sure you’re running the latest version of the app (version 6.3).

Starting today, Google Keyboard on Android is getting a new name — and so much more. Gboard has all the things you love about your old Google Keyboard — speed and accuracy, Glide Typing and voice typing — plus Google Search built in. You can search and send information, GIFs, emojis and more — right from your keyboard. As an added bonus, we’ve added multilingual typing to help you switch languages on the fly.

Search and share, right from your keyboard

It shouldn’t be that hard to search and share on your phone -- and with Gboard, it isn’t.

You can search Google and share results right from your keyboard — anything from flight times and weather to news. Gboard also predicts possible searches that may be relevant to you. Text a friend “Let’s meet if the weather looks good” and see a prediction for “Weather”. With one tap, you can share today’s weather with your friend and meet up for your next adventure.

You can also search and share emoji and GIFs. Instead of scrolling and scrolling to find ? or ?, just search “monkey” to find that emoji you want. Or, find a GIF for the perfect reaction. GIF sharing works today in Google Messenger, Allo and Hangouts, with more apps coming soon as developers add image keyboard support.

So the next time you’re texting a friend your favorite cat video or news of the day, you don’t have to leave you app. Just search and send — right from your keyboard.

Smarter and faster typing

Gboard will work in more than 100 languages as it rolls out today, and will be coming to more languages over the coming months. Get Gboard from the Play Store to swipe, search and emoji away.