Lexalytics Builds Support for Emoji 11.0

Lexalytics, a provider of machine learning and artificial intelligence, today added support for Emoji 11.0, a set of 157 new emojis from the Unicode Consortium, the governing body that determines the emojis that consumers use worldwide on their devices. With this support, Lexalytics users will be able to use the company's AI-based text analytics platform to immediately gain insights when consumers use the new emojis across social media, email, survey responses, and any other form of digital text communication.

Lexalytics uses a hybrid approach to text analytics, combining machine learning with rules and code. Lexalytics' solution allows for direct tuning, which is immediate and can be implemented ahead of time.

"Since their birth in the early '80s, emoticons, and now emojis, have long been used as sentiment markers to help people more effectively communicate in the digital world," said Jeff Catlin, CEO of Lexalytics, in a statement. "To understand the full scope of what people are saying and feeling about a particular product, brand, or service, emojis are becoming just as critical as standard text for our enterprise customers."

Emoji 11.0 provides the data needed for vendors to begin integrating the code into their platforms ahead of the launch of Unicode 11.0 scheduled for June. The new emojis should start appearing on users' phones in August or September. New emojis include man and woman with new hairstyles (red-haired, curly-haired, white-haired and bald), superhero and supervillain, leg, foot, hot and cold face emojis, and many more. This brings the total number of emojis to 2,823.

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