The latest (and very visual) news from the Google search engine has a simple explanation: TikTok

Some believe that Google is dying. Not the company, but the search engine. For some time now, the results—many of them promoted—are worse than before. To this problem is added another: that of an internet that has evolved towards the brief and visual.

That is where TikTok is eating the toast: many young people are turning this social network or Instagram into their search platform, and although it does not work for everything, in certain scenarios that visual search wins more and more integers. Google is watching the ears of the wolf, and has begun to react.

News to go-go

Yesterday Google celebrated its event Search Ona meeting that served to raise what is possibly the greatest renewal of its services search and maps in years.

The changes that lie ahead are numerous and focused especially mobile. There, the traditional trajectory of Google is combined with another objective that is much more relevant today: to leave the TikToks, Instagram and Reddits of the world behind again. What do those changes want to be? Attention, there are a few:

• multisearch. Searching with words is no longer enough, and in the new multi-search we can combine text with images that we can then refine to give the search more context. The option has been available for a limited time, and will now be activated globally.

• Google Lens. The tool is reinforced and also becomes a pillar of multi-search. Do you like a jacket that you have seen on a celebrity? No problem: search for it with Google Lens, then add the word “in blue” to find where it’s sold in that color.

• Closeness. Another factor that we can add to the search is the location. Do you feel like eating some torreznos where you are? No problem, because Google too will offer you that option. It will do so first in the United States —there few torreznos, we fear—, but theoretically the option will end up reaching the whole world.

• links are not enough. The traditional list of results as a list of text links is no longer enough. On certain occasions, the search engine will present a mosaic of images and informative widgets that try to present what we are looking for on the screen in a much more visual way.

• Exploration. At Google they seem to have assumed that search is no longer a matter of asking and being answered, but is becoming almost a game of exploration in which there does not have to be a single correct answer (at least not always) and the results they are one more form of discovery.

• Autocomplete supervitamin. Google already autocompleted our search terms, but now it will offer a series of options associated with those terms that are autocompleted under the search box. If we start typing “Soria to-” it will suggest —continuing our previous example— “torreznos” as a result, and choosing that option below the box will bring up options on where to eat them nearby or how to prepare them at home, for example.

• Forums and discussions. Google is not only threatened by TikTok or Instagram in visual searches: Reddit does it in text searches, and that is where the Google engine is renewed. It does this with the “Discussions and forums“, which directly includes links to content from forums such as Reddit or Quora. It will no longer be necessary to add “reddit” or “site:reddit.com” in the search field, because Google will directly suggest threads from that and other discussion forums .

• Shopping. The Google Shopping service also strengthensand now it will suffice to write “shop + [producto]” (in the English version) so that the search engine understands that you are looking for that product to buy it. It will no longer be necessary to enter the product and then click on the ‘Shopping’ section. Once again, the option will arrive first on mobile and more go ahead to the desk.Clothes will also be a preferred element in those purchases, and there will be 360-degree views and suggestions of accessories for that jacket that you liked.

• the invisible translator. The translation tool will also improve to become virtually invisible: Google Lens is renewed in that section and stop showing translations as blocks “overlapping” the original image or text. Instead, advances in AI will allow the translated text to become an integral part of the image we focus on with the camera. Website translation will also be much more transparent, especially when text is overlaid on images, and it will almost seem like magic to see those texts disappear.

• Google improves your voice. And if you use Google’s voice assistant, there are also improvements. The TTS (Text To Speech) synthesis engine has improved considerably according to Google, and in the coming weeks will be offered more natural voices —less robotic— and with better sound quality.

• immersive maps. And to all this are added the improvements in Google Maps, which, for example, will now allow you to navigate inside the main buildings. This new 3D immersive view joins 250 new aerial views of the great points of interest of various cities, but the other great novelty is the improvement of Live View. This option that superimposes arrows and directions on our view of the world is now completed with other points of interest such as restaurants —with their opening hours—, transport stops and stations, or even ATMs.

The threat wasn’t DuckDuckGo, it was TikTok and visual search

The improvements are numerous and of course pose important changes in the search experience, especially on mobile devices. The focus is on them because that is where the new generations are replacing Google.

The situation it is singular if we take into account that not long ago we were talking about the fact that it did not seem that the Google search engine was going to have a rival in the short term.

Google seemed unbeatable because you didn’t even have to leave it to find what you were looking for. It turns out that the rival was not in pure search engines like the DuckDuckGo or Brave Search of the world. The threat it has been raised by social networks such as TikTok, Instagram or Reddit.

What seems clear is that Google Lens reinforces its leading role for the future of searches —the voice was a bit the great forgotten of the event, curious—, but what changes radically is the presentation of the results. The list of links is no longer valid for everything: the visual commands.