Google's new experimental app can scan and categorize your documents

Area 120, Google's internal startup incubator, wants to give you a better way to scan documents with your phone. Stack, its newest experimental app, uses the company's enterprise-grade DocAI technology to analyze and categorize your documents intelligently.

You can either snap a photo of a document using the app or import one from your phone's camera roll. After scanning something, the app will automatically categorize it into a "Stack" that corresponds to the correct document type. The software will also automatically highlight essential details. For example, if you scan a receipt, Stack will flag the transaction date and total amount you paid in a separate pane. What's more, you can use the app to search the entire text of a document, not just the title. One other nifty feature is that you can protect your scans using biometrics like your fingerprint.

At the moment, it doesn't seem like there's a concrete plan related to monetization. Christopher Pedregal, the team lead on Stack, told The Verge, "it's early days" for the software. The hope is that the app will catch on. Like so many Google projects, that can make it hard to commit to something that could get shut down before it gets a chance to grow into something special.

Stack is currently only available to download on Android devices in the US. Early reviews on the Play Store are mixed, with some people complaining that they can't get the app to work. Early days, indeed.