According to a report by 9to5Google , the search giant's "smart" messaging app — which came equipped with Google Assistant — will be shutting down soon.
Google did not immediately reply to Business Insider's request for comment on the report.
Allo was announced at the company's developer conference in May 2016, and after lackluster adoption, the company said in April 2018 it would be "pausing investment" on the app.
"The product as a whole has not achieved the level of traction that we’d hoped for,” Anil Sabharwal, vice president of product at Google, told The Verge at the time .
The decision to shutter Allo makes strategic sense, since the company announced — also in April 2018 — that it was working on an ini tiative known as Google Chat . Google Chat will be similar to SMS and Apple's iMessage, creating a new universal standard for text messaging for Android users known as rich communication services (or RCS).
Still, it's hard to ignore the difficulties Google has had launching a consumer messaging app throughout the history of the company. Once Google confirms the shutdown of Allo, it will join Google Buzz, Google Wave, and Gchat — technically called Google Talk — in the chat app graveyard.
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