During the annual Samsung conference, where the Galaxy S24 series smartphones and the new Galaxy AI artificial intelligence features were unveiled by the Korean giant, Google made an appearance to announce a new collaboration with Samsung in addition to unveiling a new search feature called “Circle to Search” at the Unpacked 2024 conference. This feature allows users to simply gesture, like drawing a circle over any item on an Android phone’s screen to search for it on the internet without the need to use the Google app or web browser. This feature is expected to make it easier for Android users to search for things on Google.
The “Circle to Search” feature allows you to search for anything you see on your phone screen directly without the need to switch to the Google app or web browser. You can use this feature not only by drawing a circle around objects but also by clicking or even scribbling on them. Once you do that, the Google app will summon Google Lens to identify the specific item – with the help of artificial intelligence – and then Google will begin searching for information about the item and display it in a pop-up window. You can use Circle to Search on Instagram stories, for example, to identify a dog breed, the brand of shirt your favorite singer is wearing, or anything else in general.
This feature is expected to be released on January 31 for selected new Android smartphones including the Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro, and the new Galaxy S24 series, and we believe it will gradually expand to include more Android phones to be launched this year.
Although this feature is not reinventing the wheel, it saves you a lot of hassle. Instead of taking a picture and opening it within the Google Lens app, you can now simply circle the item you want to search for, and Google will provide you with detailed information. It is worth mentioning that this feature works on texts as well as images, so whether you see a picture of an unfamiliar product or want to know more about a public figure mentioned in an article you’re reading on a website, simply draw a circle around it and detailed information will appear.
In addition to Circle to Search, Google has introduced an additional feature to Google Lens called “Multisearch”, which allows searching using images and texts together through Google Lens to facilitate complex search operations such as searching for a shirt you saw online but in a different color. This update would not have been possible without generative artificial intelligence, which allows us to upload images and ask questions about them, and Google will provide an answer.
For example, you can upload a picture of a chess game on Google Lens and ask the popular search engine “how to play this game”, and within a few seconds, you will be presented with information about chess rules and how to play the game. Unlike the “Circle to Search” feature, the “Multisearch” feature from Google is currently only available to residents of the United States but what sets it apart from the mentioned artificial intelligence feature is that it also works on iPhones.
To activate the “Circle to Search” feature on most Android phones, such as the Galaxy S24 series from Samsung, you can go to the “Settings” app, navigate to the “Display” section, and enable the “Circle to Search” option as shown in the attached image.
If activating the “Circle to Search” feature is easy, using it is even easier and does not require much brainpower. The steps vary slightly depending on the phone interface, but in general, this feature can be accessed by long-pressing the “Home” button if using the old three-button navigation bar or by swiping from the middle of the bottom edge to the top if using gesture navigation. When you trigger the feature, a Google search bar will appear at the bottom of the screen, and you will be prompted to “Circle or tap anywhere to search”. Simply draw a circle around an object with your finger or S-Pen on the S24 Ultra, and Google will analyze the item and display the search results at the bottom of the screen. You can browse the results as usual and request specific details by typing in the search bar at the top.
That’s all you need to know about one of the most prominent artificial intelligence features on the Galaxy S24 phones, which Samsung managed to bring to the Galaxy S24 series after collaborating with Google and after this feature was previously exclusive to the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro smartphones. Now the question is: will we see this feature on other Android phones soon? Indications say yes, especially as other companies adopting the Android system have tested it on their phones repeatedly.
