When you think of Google Search, it's probably as a simple concept: You open Google, type a search, and scroll through the results—dodging ads and spam along the way. But Google's bread and butter is actually more than just its basic search engine. You can "google" questions and queries in a variety of ways, across a variety of products and services. Google continues to update and upgrade these options, and today's announcement is just the latest development. Here are five new features coming to Search starting today.
Circle to Search has been available since the start of this year, and allows you to, quite literally, circle items on your phone's display to start a Google Search for them. It's an interesting feature, and one that's getting a useful upgrade: Now, you'll be able to look up a song that's playing using Circle to Search.
You can use it by activating Circle to Search (long-press the Home button or navigation bar), then by tapping the new music button to search for music playing on or around your phone. Compatible songs will also appear as YouTube links if you want to pull up the full song as well.
This actually isn't brand new: Google has been testing this feature out since August, and starting rolling it out first with the Galaxy S24 series. But it's cool to see it coming out for more devices generally now. While you've been able to do this using both Google's main app and the YouTube app, it's a useful shortcut for anyone using Circle to Search anyway.
As much as I may wish Google would stop injecting search with AI features, the company is pushing forward with little to no reservations. Case in point: Google is now rolling out AI-organized search results that group your results into relevant categories.
Google says this initial roll-out focuses first on "recipe and meal inspiration queries," which makes sense, I suppose. If you're searching for ideas for a dinner, for example, it could be useful to group together varying results into a cohesive structure for a final recipe. This is pure speculation, but maybe you first see a few different recipes, then under that, the ingredients necessary for each. Perhaps from there, you can find stores that sell what you're looking for. That could, potentially, save time, and make it easier to try a new dish you've been thinking about.
In practice, we'll see how that actually goes. AI Overviews, for example, was a disaster when it launched, to the point where I actively avoid the company's AI-generated results when I search. In fact, there are ways to make Google show you the good search results again, and avoid the AI slop altogether. But yeah, sure: Keep adding AI to Search, Google.
For years, Google Lens has been a useful way to search images you take with your smartphone. Using Lens, you can take a photo of a plant and learn more about it, or copy text out of an image using OCR (optical character recognition) and paste it somewhere else.
Now, Google is rolling out a new feature that lets you dictate requests to Google Lens using your voice. Google says you can simply hold down the shutter button in Lens, then ask whatever you want. Rather than snap a picture, scan it, and hope you get the results you want, you can point your camera over a plant and ask Google what species it is, how much one typically costs, and how to care for it.
Google is also highlighting an existing feature that lets you add text to these searches to refine what you're looking for. If you like a bag for example, but want it in a different color, add the word "blue" or "red" to your search to see if Google can find the item in the color you prefer.
On a similar note, you can now share video with Lens to search, so long as you're enrolled in Search Labs' "AI Overviews and more" experiments. The feature is currently in testing, so it might not work exactly as intended yet, but if you do opt-in, you can try searching a video you record directly in Lens.
Like searching with your voice, you can use this feature by holding down the shutter button to record a video while asking a question aloud. Google's AI model will then process both the video and your question, and return the result as an AI Overview. (Fantastic.) In theory, however, it sounds like it could be useful: If you have a question about something, say, why your tablet's display is flickering, you could record it, ask Lens the question out loud, and hopefully find a more accurate answer than a standard Google search would have returned.
Another new Lens feature is all about making shopping simpler: When you take a photo of a product with Lens, your phone will now display an organized results page of information relating to purchasing said product: You'll see reviews, the prices different retailers carry the item for, and links to go shop for that item. This will work with Circle to Search, too, so you can long-press your Home button or navigation bar, circle a product you see on-screen, and learn more about it.
