Google Brings Generative AI-Powered Search Feature To India As per Google, this feature will transform the way information is organized to help people sort through and make sense of what's out there
By Teena Jose •
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Google, in December last year, demonstrated AI being used to make the Search experience more natural and intuitive with India-focused innovations that focus on bilingual users' needs, new ways to search using a phone camera, and a new speech recognition model for Hinglish users.
Today, Google announced that it is rolling out Search Generative Experience (SGE) in India as an opt-in experiment via Search Labs, adding that this AI-powered experience is available in English and Hindi.
"With new generative AI capabilities in Search, we're now taking more of the work out of searching. We're envisioning a supercharged Search that does the heavy lifting for you so you'll be able to understand a topic faster, uncover new viewpoints and insights, and get things done more easily. The Search Generative Experience is the first step we're taking in this journey, and part of our vision to make Search radically more helpful. We're excited to bring this to India, and look forward to receiving feedback and iterating on the experience alongside our users over the next few months," said Puneesh Kumar, general manager, Google Search, India.
Google says this new technology can unlock entirely new types of questions one never thought Search could answer. It claims this will transform the way information is organized to help people sort through and make sense of what's out there.
With this new feature, users will be presented with an AI-powered overview of key information to consider, with links to dig deeper. Google believes this will be helpful especially for new internet users, who may often get overwhelmed with the amount of information online, finding an answer more quickly can help ease their journey of discovery.
In an official statement, Google elaborated the specialty of this new feature. It states, for instance, a question like, "Which is a good beginner trek in Himachal and how to prepare for it?" Normally, one might break this one question down into smaller ones, sort through the vast information available, and start to piece things together. With generative AI integrated in Search, they'll see suggested next steps where they can simply tap a query like "How to take great photos on a trek?", or type in a specific follow-up question. This conversational mode enables people to intuitively learn more about the topic they're exploring. Context will be carried over from question to question, to help people more naturally continue their exploration.
Furthermore, Google has also introduced features that are unique to SGE in India. A person can switch from an English result to Hindi by tapping the language toggle button, listen to the response with Text-To-Speech by tapping the 'Listen' button, and — rolling out soon — people will be able to tap the microphone icon in conversational mode to ask follow-up questions instead of typing them.
