Reddit Announces IPO on Heels of Expanded Deal with Google

Community message board and social news aggregator Reddit, founded in 2005, has filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange in an IPO observers say may be complete in a matter of weeks. It is the first social media company to go public in many years, with Snap Inc.’s 2017 offering cited as the most recent stock market splash. Reddit’s bankers are reportedly seeking a $5 billion valuation, about half the $10 billion it was valued at for a 2021 private funding round. Reddit filed with the SEC the same day it announced an “expanded partnership” with Google to use Vertex AI. Continue reading Reddit Announces IPO on Heels of Expanded Deal with Google

Conversational Chatbot Optimizes Google Ads, Search Results

Google’s multimodal Gemini large language model will offer chat capabilities that help advertisers build and scale Search campaigns within the Google Ads platform using natural language prompts. “We’ve been actively testing Gemini to further enhance our ads solutions, and, we’re pleased to share that Gemini is now powering the conversational experience,” Google said, explaining the functionality is now available in beta to English language advertisers in the U.S., UK and will be rolling out globally to all English language advertisers over the next few weeks, with additional languages offered in the months ahead. Continue reading Conversational Chatbot Optimizes Google Ads, Search Results

Google Touts 25 Years and 2023’s Top Global, Local Trends

Alphabet is celebrating 25 years in search with a 25-Year Video Time Capsule on YouTube in conjunction with Google’s annual Year in Search global and local trend charts for 2023. Delving into local interests and traversing the globe, the lists demonstrate how human curiosity connects us across the planet through universal common interests. Topping the global searches for 2023 news is the Israel-Hamas war, followed by June’s Titanic-bound submersible disaster, then the earthquakes that devastated Turkey and Syria in June. In the entertainment world, “Barbie” was Hollywood’s most-searched film. Continue reading Google Touts 25 Years and 2023’s Top Global, Local Trends

Google Debuts Generative AI Tools Aimed to Help Merchants

Google is rolling out a suite of AI-powered marketing tools designed to help small businesses make the most of the holiday sales season. Merchants can add a “small business” attribute to their Search and Maps results and generate advertising and promotional materials using something called Product Studio. “Eighty-four percent of people say supporting local and/or small businesses is important to them, so we’re making it easier to find them on Google,” the company writes. Products and businesses with the “small business” label “will make it easier for shoppers to narrow down their searches and be intentional about shopping.” Continue reading Google Debuts Generative AI Tools Aimed to Help Merchants

Google Taps AI for Tools to Help Authenticate Search Results

Google is rolling out three new tools to verify images and search results. “About this image,” Fact Check Explorer and Search Generative Experience (SGE) all add context to Google Search results. “About this image” is rolling out globally to English-language users as part of the Google Search UI. Available in beta since summer, Fact Check Explorer will let journalists and professional fact checkers delve into an image or topic more deeply via API. Search Generative Experience lets GenAI investigate and share results about websites by populating source descriptions for some targets that will appear in “more about this page.” Continue reading Google Taps AI for Tools to Help Authenticate Search Results

Google Makes Passkeys Default Option on Personal Accounts

Earlier this year, Google introduced support for passkeys as part of a larger initiative to improve security and eventually eliminate the need for passwords. Since the launch, consumers have begun using passkeys across Google apps such as Search, YouTube and Maps. As the next step in establishing “a simpler and more secure way to sign into your accounts online,” and following positive feedback from early users, the company is offering passkeys as the default option across personal accounts. When signing into accounts, users will receive prompts for creating passkeys. Additionally, Google account settings will feature a toggle that reads “skip password when possible.” Continue reading Google Makes Passkeys Default Option on Personal Accounts

Google Links Bard AI to Apps Including YouTube, Docs, Drive

Google is implementing a plan to help its Bard AI become more competitive with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Bard Extensions will allow English-language users to expand the chatbot’s knowledge repository to data from various Google apps, including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Maps, YouTube, and Google Flights and hotels, or even information stored “across multiple apps and services,” Google says. The update boosts search engine capabilities with the travel features, while providing some functionalities of a personal assistant by letting it identify missed emails or summarize the relevant points in a document. Continue reading Google Links Bard AI to Apps Including YouTube, Docs, Drive

Google’s AI-Powered Search Delivers Relevant, Visual Results

Google is adding images and video to its Search Generative Experience (SGE), an AI-powered context tool the company began testing in May that some are already calling “the future of Google Search.” Those who have signed up for Search Labs and enabled SGE will begin seeing more multimedia at the top of their search results. The idea is to help searchers “get up to speed on a new topic, uncover quick tips for your specific questions or discover products and things to consider — with article links to dig deeper,” Google explains of its latest AI improvements. Continue reading Google’s AI-Powered Search Delivers Relevant, Visual Results

Google Announces Wide Range of New Products, AI Features

While the much-anticipated unveiling of the $1,799 Pixel Fold is generating headlines after yesterday’s Google I/O developer conference, the company made a slew of other announcements, including the $500 Pixel Tablet, the midrange Pixel 7A, AI functionality for Google Search and Android, an AI-powered editing feature for Google Photos, an improved Wear OS 4 (available later this year), and a redesigned Google Home app (available today). In addition, the company announced that its AI-powered chatbot Bard is now available to everyone, whether you were on the waitlist or not. We’ve compiled a helpful list of new products and features, along with links to reviews and related news. Continue reading Google Announces Wide Range of New Products, AI Features

Google to Restyle Search with a More ‘Snackable’ AI Touch

In the wake of Microsoft’s phenomenal success with Bing Chat powered by OpenAI, Google is restyling its search platform to be conversationally driven using artificial intelligence. It also plans to add more social media posts and short videos to its search results, a significant shift from the “10 blue links” of website results that have traditionally served as the Google Search template. At its Google I/O developer conference today, Google is expected to showcase new AI features that it will incorporate into search as part of a new project code-named “Magi.” Continue reading Google to Restyle Search with a More ‘Snackable’ AI Touch

Google Ads Transparency Center Offers Searchable Ad Data

Google is launching an Ads Transparency Center. The “searchable hub” rolls out to global users in the coming weeks and lets anyone look up who’s behind an ad, which ads an advertiser ran and where across Google Search, YouTube and the Google Display Network. Additional details are provided for political ads, including the amount spent, number of impressions and any location targeting criteria. In 2020 Google began requiring that advertisers verify their identities, and a year later began letting users access some ad info, but its transparency move follows Facebook’s similar offering, which launched in 2019. Continue reading Google Ads Transparency Center Offers Searchable Ad Data

Google Touts Search Plans During Its ‘Live from Paris’ Event

Google unveiled new search features during its “Live from Paris” event via a YouTube stream. The emphasis was on multisearch, which will go live globally to mobile platforms in more than 70 languages where Google Lens is used, according to the company. Introduced last year, the multisearch feature looks through images and text, driven by an AI technology the company has developed called MUM, for Multitask Unified Model. There were no new announcements regarding Bard, Google’s new conversational AI search tool, although media outlets reported that Bard responded incorrectly in a Twitter promo the same day. Continue reading Google Touts Search Plans During Its ‘Live from Paris’ Event

Google and Microsoft Announce AI-Based Search Functions

Microsoft unveiled a ChatGPT-powered version of its Bing search engine on Tuesday, following Google’s announcement it is testing a conversational artificial intelligence app called Bard, expected to launch publicly in the coming weeks with applications for products starting with Google Search. Google will next month begin onboarding developers, creators and enterprises for its generative language API (which will initially utilize a lightweight version of LaMDA and eventually offer “a range of models”). Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI and Google’s new plans may be putting pressure on Apple and Meta. “A race starts today,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said. Continue reading Google and Microsoft Announce AI-Based Search Functions

Google Intros New Features for Search, Maps and Shopping

Google is starting to publicly roll out many of the new features introduced at its Search On event in September. Spanning Google Search, Shopping and Maps, the tools let consumers do things like search their favorite restaurant dish by name, like “truffle mac and cheese near me.” A visual search experience for Maps called Live View lets users glimpse street scenes in cities including London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Francisco and Tokyo. And an AR shopping feature invites people to try on everything from makeup to accessories using a library of 148 models. Continue reading Google Intros New Features for Search, Maps and Shopping

Google Search Reinvention Focuses on Visuals and Discovery

Google is the latest tech giant to be swayed by the influence of TikTok and Instagram as it reimagines a more visual, discovery-centric type of search. That was major media’s takeaway from the third annual Google Search On event, which continued the trend of trying to find more intuitive ways to search, namely visually and vocally, by snapping a photo or asking your phone a question. Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, the Alphabet company says it is “going far beyond the search box to create search experiences that work more like our minds.” Continue reading Google Search Reinvention Focuses on Visuals and Discovery