Google has launched a new feature that will allow people in Kenya to search the internet by taking a video and voice commands in a bid to improve user experience.
The video search feature will allow people to point their camera at something, ask a question about it, and get search results.
From the recorded or uploaded video, Google makes sense of it and the accompanying audio, and returns an overview organised using artificial intelligence (AI), along with links from the internet on more information about the question.
It went live across several parts of the world earlier in the year but only to users enrolled in Google’s experimental programme Search Labs, but has now been rolled out in Kenya and other markets across the globe.
“We previewed our video understanding capabilities at I/O (Google’s annual developer conference), and now you can use Lens to search by taking a video, and asking questions about the objects that you see,” said Google’s head of search Liz Reid.
The improvement of the Google Lens feature is targeted at meeting the needs of younger users, who form the majority of those utilising the feature since its introduction in 2017.
“Lens queries are now one of the fastest growing query types on Search, and younger users (ages 18-24) are engaging most with Lens,” said Ms Reid.
Google is also deploying AI to improve search results, especially for open-ended questions that may have “no single right answer.”
However, this new feature is only in the United States, for a start, but is expected to go live across the rest of the globe later in the year or early next year, after successful trials in the US.
“… we’re bringing people more diverse content formats and sites, creating even more opportunities for content to be discovered,” Ms Reid said.
