Google Multisearch Could Be The Biggest Upgrade To Web Searches In Years
Have you ever searched for something on the internet and found something close to what you were looking for except for a few key elements? Like a garment in a style you adore, but that's the wrong color, for example. Google's latest search innovation is specifically designed to help with that kind of scenario.
It's called "Multisearch," and the idea is that you can combine different types of searches into a single search. The example that Google gives—and currently the only supported mode—is a combination of image and text search. Someone uses Google Lens to search for a dress that a model is wearing in a photo, and then adds the word "green" to find green versions of similar dresses. Google also suggests adding "coffee table" to a picture of a dining set to find a matching table, or adding "care instructions" to a picture of a flower.
Google says the feature is powered by AI, and like most AI-powered features, your results may vary. For example, searching with an image of an Xbox One controller and adding "PlayStation" did give us results of things related to PlayStation controllers, so you could argue that it is completely working as intended. However, almost all of the results were for PlayStation controller skins, not the controllers themselves, which is of somewhat dubious utility.
It's still a pretty cool feature, though. Google says that it's still experimental (and the Google app will remind you of this when you use it), so for now it's only available on smartphones in the US. To try it out, load up the Google app on your phone and tap the camera button to perform a Lens search, then look for a prompt that says "+ Add to your search" near the top of the screen.
