Search smarter and more efficiently with Google’s generative AI
Over the past 25 years, through many technological changes, Google has continuously reinvented and expanded Google Search. It has carefully refined the core systems for information quality to help you find the best of the web. This has built up a knowledge base with billions of facts about people, places and things, so you can get reliable information in a flash.
Now, thanks to generative AI, Search can do more than you ever thought possible. You can ask anything you want or need – from research to planning and brainstorming – and Google takes care of it for you. This is made possible by a new Gemini model, customised for Google Search. This model combines Gemini’s advanced capabilities, such as multi-step reasoning, planning and multimodality, with our best-in-class search systems.
Quick answers with AI Overviews
Sometimes you want an answer quickly, but you don’t have time to look for all the information you need yourself. Search does the work for you with AI Overviews. People have already used AI Overviews billions of times through Google’s Search Labs experiment. Google has found that people with AI Overviews use Search more and are more satisfied with their results. From 14 May 2024, AI Overviews has been rolled out to everyone in the US, with more countries following soon. With AI Overviews, people visit a greater diversity of websites for help with more complex questions. The links in AI Overviews get more clicks than if the page appeared as traditional search results. Ads continue to appear, as always, in dedicated slots on the page, with clear labels to distinguish organic and sponsored results.
Customise your AI Overview
Soon you will be able to customise your AI Overview with options to simplify the language or make it more detailed. This can be particularly handy if you are new to a topic, or if you want to simplify something for your child’s curiosity. This update is coming soon to Search Labs for English-language searches in the US.
Ask your most complex questions
With the multi-step reasoning capabilities of the customised Gemini model, AI Overviews will help with increasingly complex questions. Instead of breaking your question up into multiple searches, you can ask your most complex questions, with all the nuances and caveats you have in mind, in one go. For example, perhaps you are looking for a new yoga or pilates studio that is popular with locals, conveniently located for your commute and also offers a discount for new members. Soon, with just one search, you can ask something like: “Find the best yoga or pilates studios in Amsterdam and show details about their introductory offers and walking time from Amsterdam Centraal station.”
Plan ahead
As well as finding the right answer or information for a complex question, Search can also help you with planning. With planning capabilities directly in Search, you can get help making plans for anything you need, starting with meals and holidays. For example, search for “Create a 3-day meal plan for a group that is easy to prepare,” and you get a starting point with a wide range of recipes from the web. If you want to change something, you can simply ask for adjustments, such as replacing the dinner with a vegetarian dish. Google Search then adjusts your meal plan. You can quickly export your meal plan to Docs or Gmail. Meal and travel planning are now available in Search Labs in English in the US. Later this year Google will add customisation options and more categories, such as parties, date nights and workouts.
AI-organised results page
When you are looking for new ideas, finding inspiration and weighing up all your options can take a lot of work. Soon, when you are looking for ideas, Search will use generative AI to brainstorm with you and create an AI-organised results page that makes exploring easy. You will see helpful results, categorised under unique, AI-generated headings, with a wide range of perspectives and content types. For English-language searches in the US you will soon see this new AI-organised search results page when you are looking for inspiration – starting with dining and recipes, followed by movies, music, books, hotels, shopping and more.
Create a video using AI
Searching is so much more than just words in a text box. Your questions are often about the things you see around you, including objects in motion. Thanks to advances in video understanding, we can take visual search to a whole new level, with the ability to ask questions using video. Perhaps you bought a record player at a charity shop, but it doesn’t work when you turn it on and the metal part with the needle moves uncontrollably. Searching with video saves you the time and effort of finding the right words to describe this problem, and you get an AI Overview with steps and sources to solve the problem. Searching with video will soon be available to Search Labs users in English in the US, and we will expand this to more regions over time. This is just a glimpse of how Google Search is being reshaped – combining the very best of Search with the advanced capabilities of the Gemini model.
Want to know more or talk it through? Get in touch with us.