INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Google has lit the news canon at its annual India event which takes place in New Delhi today
The search giant announced changes to its Tez payment service, and it has alsointroduced a subtle AI-powered feature for its Google Go
search app: website reading
You can bet these are the first of many product announcements to come today.
The United States firm introduced Google Go — which is
essentially a data-light search app for emerging markets — last year, and this new feature is designed to increase its appeal across
India, particularly for non-English audiences.
A quick refresher: Hindi and English are the official national languages of India, but its
billion-plus population is hugely diverse with more than 20 other languages recognized
The majority of those living in urban India are comfortable with English, but companies are increasinglyaware that they need to cater to
other tongues in order to offer even basic online services to the rest (majority) of the country.
Google isn''t alone in adopting this
approach — it is actually a relative laggard — but now it is trying to help translate the web with this new Google Go feature.
Google
said the addition can make website reading just like watching TV or listening to the radio
The feature reads out text in one of 28 supported languages whilst highlighting each word on the page as it goes
The firm said it uses AI to seek out the most important information on a web page, and also to play it back in each language.
There are
obvious use cases for activities that pull attention away from reading, such as cooking, but more widely the feature is seen as part of
Google Go general approach to making information more accessible to those who are relatively inexperienced when it comes to using the
internet.
The new feature is inspired by user research in India,where we heard from people how important it is tounderstand information
Especially forpeople coming online for the first time, consuminglong-form text on a small device can be difficult andtime-consuming
With this new feature, you can justpress play and follow along,& the company wrote in a statement.
It added thatit is looking into ways to
add the feature to other Google apps in the future, so stayed tuned.
