Google has been working on a new input mode for Keep. Over the course of the past month or so, we’ve been tracking development progress on a new Keep mode for handwritten notes, including the ability to selectively convert those written notes to editable text. As we wait to see this feature finally go live, we continue to look for signs of its further evolution, and we think we’ve spotted another batch of progress worth bringing to your attention.

You may recall that in our earlier coverage we spotted a welcome screen in the app that mentioned a “text to sketch” mode that sounded like it involved some generative AI capabilities. Looking at the new version 5.24.462.04.90 build of Google Keep, we’ve been able to activate what could be part of that same in-development tool, only here for converting hand-drawn sketches into AI-enhanced artwork, called “Help me draw.”

This sounds like it will work similarly to Drawing Assist from Samsung Galaxy AI. After you enter some pen strokes in Keep (the tool doesn’t appear to support importing pre-existing images), you’ll be able to highlight your art and ask “Help me draw” to recognize anything in there it can work with. If it spots the beginning of a work of art, the tool will offer you a variety of styles it can render its output in — we’ve seen options for nice clean vector art, a shaded color pencil drawing, or a stark monochrome ink rendering. This also looks like it could be where “text to sketch” comes into play, as you have the option to just describe the drawing you’re after.

Once you settle on the kind of output you want, Keep gets to work at making your art… and that’s where our story ends for today. At the moment, we’re not able to get Keep to actually complete any of these renderings, and it looks like Google will need to flip on its AI magic at the other end before we get anything out of this. Even without being able to share those results with you, it feels like we’ve got a decent sense for how this tool will generally work.

As for when this might go live, the ball’s really in Google’s court. The company’s already reserved a URL for “Help me draw” support docs, but there’s nothing there yet that sheds any light on this. That said, with the sort of Keep momentum we’ve been seeing over these last few weeks, it feels like the new handwriting mode and all these features that coincide with it could be here sooner than you’d think.