Image: © temitiman/Stock.adobe.com
The new feature will give users an AI-generated list of key points when users visit some webpages, in a bid to help users navigate information faster.
Google is developing a new feature that will summarise online articles with an AI-generated explanation, as the tech giant continues its AI focus.
The feature is a new update for the AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE), an experimental upgrade that Google launched in May. SGE already has features such as summarising certain search results and linking videos and images to assist search queries.
Google said the new feature is a test to see how generative AI can help users navigate information faster and “get to the core of what you’re looking for”. The summary feature is particularly designed for people engaging with long-form content from publishers and creators.
“When you’re trying to understand the ins and outs of a new topic, you often need to digest long or complex webpages and it’s not always easy to hone in on specific details,” Google said in a blogpost.
The feature will display an AI-generated list of key points when users visit some webpages, along with links that will go to that specific part of the page. The summary also includes an “explore on page”, which lists questions that the article answers and links to relevant parts of the article.
“We think these capabilities can be particularly helpful when you’re learning something new or complex, but they can also come in handy for other tasks like finding a new recipe or researching a big purchase,” Google said. “These latest capabilities are just some of the ways that we are improving our generative AI experience in Search to make searching for and digesting information easier.”
The new feature is available for SGE users on the Google app on iOS and Android, with plans to add it to Chrome desktop users “in the days ahead”.
Summarisation appears to be a new focus for companies when it comes to AI. Google’s news follows a recent announcement from Amazon that it is developing AI-generated summaries of product reviews on its store.
The company said the goal is to make it easier to see “common themes” in reviews for a product. The feature is currently available to a “subset” of mobile users in the US.
10 things you need to know direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of essential sci-tech news.
