Current:Home > InvestGoogle’s search engine’s latest AI injection will answer voiced questions about images-DB Wealth Institute B2 Expert Reviews
Google’s search engine’s latest AI injection will answer voiced questions about images
View Date:2024-12-23 15:09:10
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google is injecting its search engine with more artificial intelligence that will enable people to voice questions about images and occasionally organize an entire page of results, despite the technology’s past offerings of misleading information.
The latest changes announced Thursday herald the next step in an AI-driven makeover that Google launched in mid-May when it began responding to some queries with summaries written by the technology at the top of its influential results page. Those summaries, dubbed “AI Overviews,” raised fears among publishers that fewer people would click on search links to their websites and undercut the traffic needed to sell digital ads that help finance their operations.
Google is addressing some of those ongoing worries by inserting even more links to other websites within the AI Overviews, which already have been reducing the visits to general news publishers such as The New York Times and technology review specialists such as TomsGuide.com, according to an analysis released last month by search traffic specialist BrightEdge.
But Google’s decision to pump even more AI into the search engine that remains the crown jewel of its $2 trillion empire leaves little doubt that the Mountain View, California, company is tethering its future to a technology propelling the biggest industry shift since Apple unveiled the first iPhone 17 years ago.
The next phase of Google’s AI evolution builds upon its 7-year-old Lens feature that processes queries about objects in a picture. The Lens option is now generates more than 20 billion queries per month, and is particularly popular among users from 18 to 24 years old. That’s a younger demographic that Google is trying to cultivate as it faces competition from AI alternatives powered by ChatGPT and Perplexity that are positioning themselves as answer engines.
Now, people will be able to use Lens to ask a question in English about something they are viewing through a camera lens — as if they were talking about it with a friend — and get search results. Users signed up for tests of the new voice-activated search features in Google Labs will also be able to take video of moving objects, such as fish swimming around aquarium, while posing a conversational question and be presented an answer through an AI Overview.
“The whole goal is can we make search simpler to use for people, more effortless to use and make it more available so people can search any way, anywhere they are,” said Rajan Patel, Google’s vice president of search engineering and a co-founder of the Lens feature.
Although advances in AI offer the potential of making search more convenient, the technology also sometimes spits out bad information — a risk that threatens to damage the credibility of Google’s search engine if the inaccuracies become too frequent. Google has already had some embarrassing episodes with its AI Overviews, including advising people to put glue on pizza and to eat rocks. The company blamed those missteps on data voids and online troublemakers deliberately trying to steer its AI technology in a wrong direction.
Google is now so confident that it has fixed some of its AI’s blind spots that it will rely on the technology to decide what types of information to feature on the results page. Despite its previous bad culinary advice about pizza and rocks, AI will initially be used for the presentation of the results for queries in English about recipes and meal ideas entered on mobile devices. The AI-organized results are supposed to be broken down into different groups of clusters consisting of photos, videos and articles about the subject.
veryGood! (72334)
Related
- Get $103 Worth of Tatcha Skincare for $43.98 + 70% Off Flash Deals on Elemis, Josie Maran & More
- Harvey Weinstein indicted on additional sex crimes charges ahead of New York retrial
- Where did the Mega Millions hit last night? Winning $810 million ticket purchased in Texas
- 'See ya later, alligator': Watch as Florida officials wrangle 8-foot gator from front lawn
- New Mexico secretary of state says she’s experiencing harassment after the election
- Young women are more liberal than they’ve been in decades, a Gallup analysis finds
- Libertarian candidates for Congress will be left off Iowa ballots after final court decision
- 2024 MTV VMAs: The Complete List of Winners
- Wildfires burn on both coasts. Is climate change to blame?
- Man accused in assault that critically wounded Ferguson officer now faces more charges
Ranking
- Daniele Rustioni to become Metropolitan Opera’s principal guest conductor
- Ex-Indiana basketball player accuses former team doctor of conducting inappropriate exams
- The New Lululemon We Made Too Much Drops Start at $29 -- But They Won't Last Long
- Jordan Chiles gifted bronze clock by Flavor Flav at MTV Video Music Awards
- Sister Wives’ Kody Brown Explains His Stance on His Daughter Gwendlyn Brown’s Sexuality
- Tyreek Hill police incident: What happened during traffic stop according to body cam
- Tyreek Hill: I could have 'been better' during police interaction before detainment
- Kids arrested, schools closed amid wave of threats after Georgia shooting
Recommendation
-
Jason Kelce collaborates with Stevie Nicks for Christmas duet: Hear the song
-
Authorities find no smoking gun in Nassar records held by Michigan State University
-
Northern lights may be visible in 17 states: Where to see forecasted auroras in the US
-
Black rights activists convicted of conspiracy, not guilty of acting as Russian agents
-
Video shows masked man’s apparent attempt to kidnap child in NYC; suspect arrested
-
Kendall Jenner Debuts Head-Turning Blonde Hair Transformation
-
Kate Gosselin zip-tied son Collin and locked him in a basement, he claims
-
Severed pig head left on California home's doorstep in possible hate crime: 'Abnormal'