Use Google like a pro with these new features

Google on Wednesday hosted its second annual Search On event and announced a number of new products.

The search giant also showed off its latest artificial intelligence (AI) innovations, geared towards “making information more helpful than ever.”

Here’s an overview of the key announcements.

Google Search On 2021

MUM enhancements to Google Lens

Google announced “a critical milestone in understanding information” with its new Multitaks Unified Model (MUM).

MUM can simultaneously understand information across a wide range of formats, such as text, images and video. It can also “draw insights from and identify connections between concepts, topics, and ideas”.

Google said it has been experimenting with using MUM’s powerful capabilities to make their products more helpful and enable entirely new ways to search.

A redesigned Search experience

With the help of advanced AI systems like MUM, Google said it would also be redesigning Search and introducing new features to enable natural, more intuitive ways to search.

Google explains: “When you search for a topic, like acrylic painting, you can see all the different dimensions people typically search for, and find the path that’s right for you.”

Other tweaks to the Search experience include Refine this search / Broaden this search to explore information by zooming in to more specific aspects of a topic.

There’s also the Visually browsable results page: For searches where you need inspiration or want to explore information visually.

Lens Mode

The lens mode will launch on iOS first. Users will see a new button in the Google app to make all the images on a page searchable through Google Lens.

Lens will also be available on Google Chrome soon. Users will be able to select images, video and text content to find search results even quicker.

This will be available globally in the coming months.

A recap of the event can be viewed here.