How to get AI reply suggestions for any message on iPhone
Some messages are hard to answer: a client asking for a discount, a friend you have not replied to in weeks, a group chat in a language you are still learning. GKeyboard reads the message you copy and suggests three ready-to-send replies, right in the app you are using.
Set up GKeyboard (about a minute)
- Install GKeyboard from the App Store and open it. It is free and there is nothing to sign up for.
- Open Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Add New Keyboard and choose GKeyboard.
- Tap GKeyboard in that list and turn on Allow Full Access. iOS asks this of every keyboard that connects to the internet, and GKeyboard needs it to fetch AI suggestions. Without it you still get the keyboard, autocorrect and word suggestions.
- In any app, touch and hold the globe key below the letters and pick GKeyboard.
The app walks you through the same steps when you first open it.
Get reply suggestions
- Long-press the message you want to answer and tap Copy.
- Tap the reply box, then tap ✦ above the keys to open the AI panel.
- Tap Reply. iOS may ask whether GKeyboard can paste what you copied; allow it so the keyboard can read that one message.
- Tap the reply you like to put it in the box. Edit it if you want, then send.
GKeyboard only looks at your clipboard when you tap Reply, never in the background.
Steer the reply
Type a few words about what you want to say before you tap Reply, such as "say yes but next week" or "politely decline". The suggestions follow your direction, and the one you pick replaces your note.
Change the tone afterwards
If a reply is close but not quite right, put it in the box and use a rewrite style such as Friendly, Formal or Shorten from the same panel. The tone guide explains each style.
Answer the same thing often?
Save your standard replies as snippets in the GKeyboard app under Styles → Snippets, then insert them with one tap from the keyboard.
What it costs
Reply suggestions are free, with a daily allowance shared with rewrites and translation that resets at midnight. GKeyboard Pro raises it to 300 a day (A$2.99 a month or A$19.99 a year in Australia; the App Store shows your local price).
What happens to the message you copied
When you tap Reply, the copied message (up to 2,000 characters) and anything you typed are sent over an encrypted connection to the GKeyboard server, which passes them to OpenAI to write the suggestions.
What happens to your text
- There is no account: no name, email or phone number.
- Autocorrect, word suggestions and spell check run on your iPhone.
- With Full Access on, the text you are writing in the current field is sent over an encrypted connection to the GKeyboard server, which passes it to OpenAI to make the suggestion. That can be the whole message around your cursor, not just one sentence.
- The GKeyboard server does not store that text and filters it out of its logs.
- The AI switches off in password, email, URL, number, one-time code and credit card fields.
- Turn off Full Access at any time and GKeyboard sends nothing; it keeps working as an on-device keyboard.
The privacy policy has the details.