This is a fantastic strategic move from Google. At the moment, in the mobile advertising space, Facebook has the upper hand, with much faster growth and way mor

This is a fantastic strategic move from Google. At the moment, in the mobile advertising space, Facebook has the upper hand, with much faster growth and way more DAUs and average daily in-app time. Facebook also threatens Google's search ad rev if they can build a Messenger based personal AI assistant that becomes people's go-to for service and product queries. On Google's Q1 2016 earning call, Ruth Porat described how they were seeing lots of growth in mobile, but a compression in net margin. This was because traffic acquisition costs (TAC) on mobile are higher. Gboard could be a really effective measure to reverse that trend. Gboard gets Google onto the iPhone almost at a "hypervisor" level. Every app with text input (especially Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram) will have Google branding when the keyboard is up and all the features that Gboard brings. Google is doing really well in the AI space as well, so expect to see more intelligent features integrated into Gboard as it matures. Great move.