Google Search has been the major search engine in most regions for a long time. While it has changed a lot under the hood in that time, it is still used by many as the main tool for searches.
AI is threatening Google’s search dominance. While it is too early to tell how good AI-based search engines will be in comparison, Google is clearly aware of the danger.
To counter this threat, Google has started to push AI into Google Search. The main user-facing feature is AI Overviews, which displays a summary based on a user’s search query at the very top of the search results.
It works similarly to how Brave Search and other search engines display AI-generated results at the top. Verdict is still out on the usefulness of the solution.
File uploads
Soon, Google users might also be able to upload files directly on Google Search to ask questions about the uploaded file. Upload a financial report, and you might ask questions about it once Google has processed the file.
This is not a new feature, considering that several AI solutions can do the same already. Even Google has a very basic file upload feature baked into search already. You can upload an image to Google Images to find out matching images online. While no AI is involved, it at least highlights that Google has the technology in place already.
X user Khushal Bherwani published an image and a short video that shows the new feature in action. It seems to work as one might expect: you activate the file upload button on Google Search, pick a file that you want analyzed, and hit the upload button.
It is likely only available for certain file types. The video shows that the feature is not complete at this point. The upload appears to have worked in the video, but Google Search did not answer the question that the user asked about the file.
Closing Words
It remains to be seen if the feature will roll out to more users in the coming months or if it gets pulled before release. There is also the question of its usefulness and whether users feel comfortable uploading files to Google.
What is your take on the feature? Would you upload files to Google to get the chance to ask an AI question about it? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
I am not sure this is a good thing. The potential for this to be misused seems to be highly possible. Imagine the information that could be gotten from a photo, everything from the clothing you wear, the background images, the ability to rapidly assess everything in the photo and identify it all. It seams like it could be used to dox a person by runing live comparisons to all photos on the Internet. What if it can do it in live time with cameras that are connected to the Internet. No one is safe from this spying. Not you, your spouse, your children. No one.
Quite frankly I’m sick and tired of having AI shoved in my face everywhere I look online.
While the concept is promising, I would not trust it to companies that are in a business of selling your information. Maybe there will be a company in a future that would use some other form of monetization including pay per use and bulletproof privacy agreement, I may consider it.