October's 7 AI News Announcements

Home

News

April 10, 2025

JosephWalker

# ai # Maps # Shopping # research # Search # Waze

October

For over two decades, we've been diving deep into machine learning and AI, pouring resources into research, tools, and infrastructure to craft products that enhance everyday life for a broader audience. Across Google, teams are unlocking AI's potential in diverse fields like healthcare, crisis response, and education. To keep you in the loop on our progress, we're rolling out a regular roundup of Google's latest AI news spanning products, research, and more. Here's a quick recap of our AI announcements from October. We've just given Google Maps its most significant AI overhaul yet. For almost 20 years, Google Maps has been revolutionizing how we navigate and explore. Now, with this massive AI update, Maps is stepping up its game. You can now throw more complex questions at Maps, like "things to do with friends," and get answers tailored by Gemini, along with quick facts about places and handy review summaries when you're short on time. Plus, to ease the stress of driving, we've added features that let you scout your route before you hit the road. This latest AI update in Maps ensures you get the freshest info, whether you're cruising around town or jetting off globally. Don't forget to check out the new tweaks we're making to Waze, Google Earth, and our developer tools. One of our expert Googlers, Steven Johnson, dropped some tips on using NotebookLM. Steven, a well-known author who often explores the nexus of science, tech, and human experience, has been instrumental in launching NotebookLM. This tool's been making waves for its ability to help folks digest large chunks of info and grasp complex concepts quickly. You can toss in PDFs, Google Docs, websites, YouTube videos, and more into NotebookLM to unearth fresh insights and dive deeper into new subjects. Steven's post spills the beans on how to make the most of it. Google Shopping just rolled out new AI features to help you snag the perfect product. The revamped Google Shopping, kicking off in the U.S., uses AI to cut through the clutter of product hunting. When you're researching a product, an AI-generated brief will dish out the key details you need before buying. As you scroll through the results, you'll spot AI-generated briefs on what to consider before pulling the trigger, plus which products might (or might not) suit your needs. The Google Shopping homepage now sports a feed of product recommendations, videos, and a personalized deals page, so you can score what you want at the best price. Search got a hefty AI update, broadening the range of questions you can ask. AI's already reshaped Google Search, letting you ask questions in fresh ways—whether you're typing, using a camera, or even humming a tune. In October, we beefed it up even more, adding features like identifying songs in Circle to Search, shopping for what you see, and searching with video. Imagine you're at the aquarium, you can whip out Lens in the Google app, record the fish, and ask aloud, "why are they swimming together?"—AI will decode the video and whip up an AI Overview, plus pull in helpful resources from the web. The world's always moving, and now Search can help you keep up with it. We announced that all Chromebooks, including two new models, will pack built-in AI. Every Chromebook will now come loaded with the Gemini app, and Chromebook Plus laptops will feature new Google AI productivity tools like Live Translate, Help me write, the Recorder app, and Welcome Recap, which helps you jump right back into where you left off on your Chromebook. The new Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus is the slimmest and lightest Chromebook Plus out there, with a new Quick Insert key for easy AI access; and Lenovo's latest Chromebook Duet 11” is compact, tough, and switches between tablet and desktop mode in a snap. At our annual Google Public Sector Summit, we announced new grants for AI training. AI's set to boost the U.S. public sector's cybersecurity, data analysis, and citizen services. To get the U.S. government workforce up to speed on responsible AI, Google.org is dishing out $15 million in new training grants to the Partnership for Public Service and InnovateUS. These grants will help foster AI leadership and talent within the federal government and open up AI training to over 100,000 public sector workers across more than 30 states. The Nobel Prize was awarded to three Google AI trailblazers for pushing the boundaries of AI science for the benefit of all. Google alum Geoff Hinton snagged the Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering work on neural networks. Meanwhile, Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis and John Jumper took home the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their groundbreaking work with AlphaFold 2, which cracked the code on nearly all known protein structures. This tool's been a game-changer for over 2 million researchers worldwide, speeding up discoveries in critical areas like malaria vaccines and cancer treatments.

Debates over AI benchmarking have reached Pokémon Even the beloved world of Pokémon isn't immune to the drama surrounding AI benchmarks. A recent viral post on X stirred up quite the buzz, claiming that Google's latest Gemini model had outpaced Anthropic's leading Claude model in the classic Pokémon video game trilogy. According to the post, Gemini

Top 10 AI Marketing Tools for April 2025 Artificial intelligence (AI) is shaking up industries left and right, and marketing is no exception. From small startups to big corporations, businesses are increasingly turning to AI marketing tools to boost their brand visibility and drive their growth. Incorporating these tools into your business

Wikipedia is giving AI developers its data to fend off bot scrapers Wikipedia's New Strategy to Manage AI Data Scraping Wikipedia, through the Wikimedia Foundation, is taking a proactive step to manage the impact of AI data scraping on its servers. On Wednesday, they announced a collaboration with Kaggle, a platform owned by Google and dedicated to data science and

Comments (40)

0/200

Submit

BruceGarcía