Google Shows Off AI Advancements, in Search Results and Beyond

Stock photo of Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters
Stock photo of Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters


Google is racing to stay on top in the generative-AI wars.

Google plans to begin including AI-generated text answers to search queries in the coming months. The announcement came at the company’s (kind of slapdash) live event in Paris on Wednesday, along with numerous other updates to Search, Maps, and more.

Earlier this week, Google introduced Bard, its AI chatbot response to OpenAI’s wildly popular ChatGPT. But unlike Bard, these generative AI responses won’t be contained in a separate widget, they’ll become a part of standard searches.

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Click thorough to learn about AI-generated search answers and all of the other updates coming to Google.

What will generative AI in Google search look like?


Note the long-form text answer shown at the top of these search results.

For questions with no single correct answer (which Google has termed “No One Right Answer,” or NORA, queries), the company’s search engine will soon provide multi-sentence responses, exploring and explaining some of the many possibilities. These longform AI blurbs will appear in a box at the top of search, similar to where definitions for words or math solutions might appear now.

Using a pre-recorded demo, Google exec Prabhakar Raghavan shared an example about stargazing. Offered the query, “What are the best constellations to look for when stargazing?” Google’s generative AI spit out a bullet-pointed list of nuanced responses. It mentioned Orion, Cassiopeia, and other star formations notable for different reasons—their brightness, their shape, and so on.

On top of providing the initial text response, the search results for the stargazing query included a few suggested follow-up questions; also presumably AI-generated. These included, “What is the best time of year to see these constellations.” And, in response to that follow-up, the search engine offered a whole new list of bullet-pointed information which appeared to draw on knowledge of the previous answer. To the second query, Google didn’t just give the best time of year to see any old constellation—it offered descriptions specific to Orion, Cassiopeia, and the others it had first listed.

What’s happening with the Bard chatbot though?


Disclaimer: This promo GIF contains two truths and a lie. The James Webb Space Telescope did NOT provide the first pictures of exoplanets.

Google didn’t provide much of an update on its AI chatbot. We already knew it had entered testing with a small group of “trusted” demo users, using a light version of the company’s LaMDA language model. And for now, that’s still the case.

Next month, Google said it will begin onboarding developers to interact with its generative language API to build their own tools and features.

Google’s recent rush to forefront AI is an obvious response to the rise of ChatGPT, and Microsoft’s swift investment in a multi-billion dollar partnership with OpenAI. On Tuesday, Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered Bing search engine went live for a preview. Similar to Google, Microsoft also seems to be both offering an AI-chatbot option, separate from standard search, as well as AI-responses integrated into search.

At the moment, Microsoft appears to be taking a more aggressive approach to its AI-search responses. In an example on the company’s blog—a search for fitness advice yields a step-by-step workout plan that’s AI-generated, alongside standard video and link results. Whereas Google seems to be taking a more cautious approach—not using generative-AI to present definitive answers or guidance.

“We were one of the first companies to embrace AI principles,” Google’s Raghavan said. But he emphasized that the Google’s philosophy to developing generative-AI tools for the public is to be “bold and responsible.” As the legacy search engine dominator, Google has a reputation to uphold. Whereas Bing can likely be a little more free-wheeling in Microsoft’s bid for a real stake in the long-monopolized search space.

That said, Google has already made a pretty astounding error in advertising Bard. The promo (shown above, and featured on Google’s blog and Twitter account), contains a glaring inaccuracy.

What else did Google announce?

Stock image of Google search interface
Stock image of Google search interface


Ideally, this image would’ve been a screenshot or photo from the Paris event itself, but Google removed the video as soon as the livestream concluded.

In addition to the updates on AI-powered text search, Google introduced a whole suite of other improvements and expansions to existing features in visual search, Maps, and translation.


Search Your Screen

The company has upgraded its Lens and visual search tools to allow users to one-click search items from images and videos on their phone screens. Basically, if an Android phone user pulls up a picture of a historical building, they can tap it to find out what that landmark is called.

Multisearch Comes to Mobile Search

Similarly, in mobile multisearch, users on both iOS and Android can now tap sections of images listed in search results to start a new, multisearch query focused on the selected person/place/thing. Users can add a color or shape qualifier to find exactly what they’re looking for more quickly.

Immersive View

Google has also introduced a new way to interact with Maps, called “immersive view.” The mode, enabled by AI-fusing of 2-D images into a 3-D rendering, can take you from a birds’ eye perspective to the inside of a business in just a few clicks. It also offers the chance to peak at the weather forecast in a more interactive way, by sliding through different times of day at the same location.


It’s a nifty way to experience the world via your computer monitor. But for now, the feature is limited to just a handful of cities: London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Tokyo.

Maps, Live View


The Live View feature, with augmented reality guiding arrows and onscreen instructions, is so far only available in certain indoor locations in a handful of cities.

For those who often find themselves disoriented navigating large indoor spaces like airports, Google has also expanded its “Live View,” directions. The tool offers real-time directional arrows overlaid on your phone’s camera view of the world.

Instead of looking at a 2-D map to orient oneself, Google users in a select number of locations like certain transit hubs and shopping centers now have the option of holding up their phone camera for an augmented reality directional guide. Google said this widget is set to become available in about 1,000 total places in the next few months—including airports, train stations, and malls in Barcelona, Berlin, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Melbourne, Paris, Prague, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, São Paulo, and Taipei.

The live view feature can also be used to visually locate shops, and other businesses in your immediate surroundings through augmented reality.

Electric Vehicle Mapping Improvements

Image of Google Maps' route with charging included
Image of Google Maps' route with charging included

In a slightly less flashy update, Google has also added new measures to improve the Maps experience for EV drivers. These changes include more comprehensive mapping of charging stations, better identification of fast chargers, and new options to maximize route efficiency that includes charge time.

Translation

Image of Google Translate
Image of Google Translate

Finally, in a translation update, Google has added more context to responses, long missing from the company’s tools. Instead of just receiving a single option for the translation of a word like “novel,” Google will offer information on all the possible definitions (i.e. a book, first of its kind, original) and when you might use each translated phrase. For now, the context update is limited to German, French, English, Japanese, and Spanish.

Update 2/8/2023, 12:55 p.m. ET: This post has been updated with additional GIFs, images, and information from Google.

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