Google Lens in desktop Chrome is getting an AI-powered upgrade that could make it feel like a desktop version of Circle to Search. As part of a Chrome update, Google will let you click a new button right in the search box to activate Google Lens so you can select things that you want to search for. Then, thanks to a sidebar that pops up right within the tab you’re looking at, you’ll be able to do a “multisearch,” or a search containing both text and the image that you found with Lens.
The feature could prove to be a more useful way to search, especially since you won’t have to navigate away from the page you’re looking at by doing a separate Google search or opening a new tab.
(Note that you’ve already been able to activate Google Lens with a right-click or from the three dots menu and see results in a sidebar on desktop Chrome, but what’s new here is the Google Lens icon in the search bar and the ability to multisearch right from that sidebar.)
The update that enables this feature is set to roll out over “the next few days” globally, according to a blog post from Chrome VP Parisa Tabriz. The search results that appear in the sidebar can include Google’s sometimes-bizarre AI Overviews, but that feature will only be available to US users, Google spokesperson Joshua Cruz tells The Verge.
Google is also adding an AI-powered feature to Chrome that will essentially let you ask questions about your search history to help find a link you might want to look at again. Tabriz gives the example of asking “what was that ice cream shop I looked at last week?” to see relevant links in your history about ice cream.
The tool, which is rolling out “in the coming weeks” in the US on desktop Chrome, is opt-in and will rely on a cloud-based model to power the results. In a briefing with reporters, Tabriz discussed the possibility of letting the model run on-device “once we can get quality performance to where we think it’s a great user experience.”