Google isgiving an AI upgradeto its Collections feature — basically, Google’s own take on Pinterest, but built into Google Search. Originally a name given toorganizing images, the Collections featurethat launched in 2018let you save for later perusal any type of search result — images, bookmarks or map locations — into groups called “Collections.” Starting today, Google will make suggestions about items you can add to Collections based on your Search history across specific activities like cooking, shopping or hobbies.
The idea here is that people often use Google for research but don’t remember to save web pages for easy retrieval. That leads users to dig through their Google Search History in an effort to find the lost page. Google believes that AI smarts can improve the process by helping users build reference collections by starting the process for them.
Here’s how it works. After you’ve visited pages on Google Search in the Google app or on the mobile web, Google will group together similar pages related to things like cooking, shopping and hobbies, then prompt you to save them to suggested Collections.
For example, after an evening of scouring the web for recipes, Google may share a suggested Collection with you titled “Dinner Party,” which is auto-populated with relevant pages from your Search history. You can uncheck any recipes that don’t belong and rename the collection from “Dinner Party” to something else of your choosing, if you want. You then tap the “Create” button to turn this selection from your Search history into a Collection.
These Collections can be found later in the Collections tab in the Google app or through the Google.com side menu on the mobile web. There is an option to turn off this feature in Settings, but it’s enabled by default.
The Pinterest-like feature aims to keep Google users from venturing off Google sites to other places where they can save and organize things they’re interested in — whether that’s a list of recipes they want to add to a pinboard on Pinterest or a list of clothing they want to add to a wish list on Amazon. In particular, retaining e-commerce shoppers from leaving Google for Amazon is something the company is heavily focused on these days. The company recently rolled outa big revamp of its Google Shopping vertical, and just this month launched a way toshop directly from search results.
The issue with sites like Pinterest is that they’re capturing shoppers at an earlier stage in the buying process — during the information-gathering and inspiration-seeking research stage, that is. By saving links to Pinterest’s pinboards, shoppers ready to make a purchase are bypassing Google (and its advertisers) to check out directly with retailers.
Meanwhile, Google is simultaneously losing traffic to Amazon, which nowsurpasses Google for product searches.Even Instagram, of all places, has become a rival, as it’s now a place to shop. The app’s Shopping feature is funneling users right from its visual ads to a checkout page in the app. PayPal, catching wind of this trend, recentlyspent $4 billion to buy Honeyin order to capture shoppers earlier in their journey.
For users, Google Collections is just about encouraging you to put your searches into groups for later access. But for Google, it’s also about getting people to shop on Google and stay on Google, no matter what they’re researching. Suggested Collections may lure you in as an easy way to organize recipes, but ultimately this feature will be about getting users to develop a habit of saving their searches to Google — and particularly their product searches.
Once you have a Collection set up, Google can point you to other related items, including websites, images and more. Most importantly, this will serve as a new way to get users to perform more product searches, too, as it can send users to other product pages without the user having to type in an explicit search query.
The update also comes with an often-requested collaboration feature, which means you can now share a collection with others for either viewing or editing.
Sharing and related content suggestions are live worldwide.
The AI-powered suggested collections are live in the U.S. for English users starting today and will reach more markets in time.
谷歌提供了一個AI升級到它的集合功能-基本上,谷歌自己對Pinterest的看法,但內置在谷歌搜索。最初被命名為組織圖像的集合功能是在2008年推出的,它允許您將任何類型的搜索結果--圖像、書籤或地圖位置--保存到名為“Collection tions”的組中,供以後閲讀。從今天開始,谷歌將根據你的搜索歷史,在烹飪、購物或業餘愛好等特定活動的基礎上,對你可以添加到收藏中的物品提出建議。
這裏的想法是,人們經常使用谷歌進行研究,但不記得保存網頁以便於檢索。這導致用户挖掘他們的谷歌搜索歷史,以努力找到丟失的網頁。谷歌相信,人工智能智能可以通過幫助用户通過為他們創建參考資料集來改進這一過程。
這就是它的工作原理。在你訪問了谷歌應用程序或移動網絡上的谷歌搜索頁面後,谷歌會將與烹飪、購物和嗜好等相關的類似頁面組合在一起,然後提示你將它們保存到建議的收藏中。
例如,經過一個晚上在網上搜索食譜後,谷歌可能會與你分享一個名為“晚餐派對”的建議集,這是自動填充與你的搜索歷史的相關頁面。如果你想的話,你可以取消任何不屬於你的菜譜,並將集合從“晚宴派對”重命名為你選擇的其他東西。然後點擊“創建”按鈕,將搜索歷史記錄中的這個選擇轉換為一個集合。
這些收藏可以在Google應用程序的Collection選項卡中找到,也可以通過移動網絡上的Google.com側菜單找到。在“設置”中有一個關閉此功能的選項,但默認情況下是啟用的。
這款類似Pinterest的功能旨在防止谷歌用户冒險離開谷歌網站,到其他可以保存和組織他們感興趣的東西的地方去--不管是他們想要添加到Pinterest的針板上的菜譜列表,還是他們想要添加到亞馬遜願望列表中的服裝清單。特別是,阻止電子商務購物者離開谷歌前往亞馬遜,是該公司近來重點關注的問題。該公司最近對谷歌購物垂直版進行了一次大規模的改造,就在本月,該公司還推出了一種直接從搜索結果出發的Toshop方式。
Pinterest這樣的網站的問題在於,它們在購買過程的早期階段--在信息收集和靈感尋求研究階段--捕捉購物者,也就是説。通過保存Pinterest針板的鏈接,準備購買商品的購物者繞過谷歌(及其廣告商),直接向零售商查詢。
與此同時,谷歌同時失去了亞馬遜(Amazon)的流量,亞馬遜現在在產品搜索方面超越了谷歌(Google)。就連Instagram在內的所有地方都已成為競爭對手,因為它現在是一個購物的地方。該應用程序的購物功能將用户從其視覺廣告直接導入到應用程序中的結賬頁面。貝寶(PayPal)抓住了這一趨勢的風口浪尖,最近斥資40億美元收購了Honeyin,以吸引更早的購物者。
對於用户來説,Google收集器就是鼓勵你將你的搜索放入組中,以便以後訪問。但對於谷歌來説,這也是為了讓人們在谷歌上購物,無論他們在研究什麼,都要留在谷歌上。建議的集合可能會吸引你,作為一種簡單的方法來組織食譜,但最終這個功能將是讓用户養成將他們的搜索保存到Google上的習慣--尤其是他們的產品搜索。
一旦你有一個集合,谷歌可以指向你的其他相關項目,包括網站,圖片等。最重要的是,這也將成為一種讓用户執行更多產品搜索的新方法,因為它可以將用户發送到其他產品頁面,而無需用户輸入顯式搜索查詢。
該更新還附帶了一個經常請求的協作功能,這意味着您現在可以與其他人共享一個集合,以便查看或編輯。
分享和相關的內容建議在世界範圍內直播。
人工智能支持的建議系列將從今天開始在美國為英語用户現場直播,並將及時到達更多的市場。