Google has finally launched the much anticipated messaging app by the company, Google Allo. Allo is the part of communication platform made in conjunction with Google Duo. Duo was released some time back by the company, and it focused on video whereas Google Allo is focused on text communication along with sending media such as photos, audio messages, stickers and locations.

Allo has a clean design, easy-to-use interface and a setup process that must be familiar to everyone who has installed WhatsApp. You download the app from the Play store, install it, hit open and you are greeted by a few colourful cards where you tap on next and next until you see the option where Google asks for your phone number to verify it. Allo doesn’t require a Google account. Although if your phone already has it, it automatically adds that. But to work it needs your phone number, similar to how WhatsApp requires it.

Once you have provided the number and installed the app, it scans the phone’s address book and automatically identifies your contacts that have installed Allo. You can start chatting with these contacts right away. In case, a contact doesn’t have Allo installed you can still send him or her the message but it will be delivered to that user as an SMS. It will have message as well as a prompt telling that the user to install Allo.

Allo is very much like WhatsApp. It too uses double tick method to tell users that their messages have been read. It too allows users to create group chat rooms. It too allows them to share images and videos. But it does all of it while looking better than WhatsApp. The design is flatter and slicker than the design of WhatsApp, which looks dated. At the same time, Allo has support for rich stickers, have options like changing the size of text on the fly and arguably has a more cooler set of emojis.

But the greatest trick that Allo has is the smart AI inside it. Google’s upcoming Assistant, which is similar to Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, is deeply integrated into Allo. In fact, it is like your all-knowing friend and a confidante. You can chat with it about the mundane evening, about why the weather is so gloomy this Saturday or ask it to tell you jokes. Powered by all the data Google has inside its servers, the Assistant can tell you the best restaurants near you or set an alarm for you. This is a trick that WhatsApp lacks. Although not everyone may find it useful but in a way, compared to say Google Now — which is getting the axe — the smart Assistant that replies to your messages in conversational format is a more natural way to do the smart virtual assistants.

At the same time, Google’s incredible AI also powers the conversations in Allo. For better or worse, the smart assistant is always there when you are talking to people, telling you what to say. If someone says “we had a great day of sales today”, the AI Assistant immediately offers some suggestions like “fantastic” “awesome” that you can just tap and be done with it. In nutshell, Allo is great when you want to talk at length. And it is particularly impressive when you hate long conversations.

Allo is even missing a few crucial features. Ability to make calls, for example is one. Although the WhatsApp calling feature has not turned out to be as well as what the developers behind it were hoping for, it is a convenience.

Google, in Allo, not only uses the phone number of the user but also the Google account (although it’s optional). Google is arguably world’s top web firm and yet it is missing a feature in Allo that would have allowed seamless sync between devices. In fact, this is a feature that is out there in Google Hangouts as well as was part of Google Talk. And users loved it. The seamless sync between chats from PC to the mobile was one of the great features of Google Talk. Allo also doesn’t support multiple-devices.

WhatsApp will feel challenged by Allo. But WhatsApp has the momentum and mass of over a billion users so it will not be an easy going for Google Allo.