Google is rolling out upgrades to Google Lens and Circle to Search, adding more links, knowledge panel information and even the new AI Overviews to the search results generated by Lens and Circle to Search. “We’ve been expanding the type of results you can get with Lens & Circle to Search,” Rajan Patel, the VP of Engineering at Google announced.
What it looks like. He shared a video of it in action on X, here it is:
More details. Rajan shared this example, “if you search for a photo of a landmark with Lens, the results now include a knowledge panel and web links about that place, as though you had searched for the name of the building itself.”
“What’s great is that by broadening the types of results we’re showing, it gives more websites the opportunity to show up and get clicks, if they’ve got the best info for that visual question. It also helps us answer a broader set of questions than we could in the past,” he added.
He promised that the Google Lens and Circle to Search results richer results will be expanded to even more categories. “In the weeks ahead, you’ll see more updates to visual query results, including helpful filters for different types of content, similar to what you already get on Search for text queries,” he wrote.
Why we care. Google gives you many different ways to search, you don’t need to just type your query into a search box. You can take photos and search with Google Lens, you can draw on those photos or screenshots with Circle to Search and many other ways to search.
As people search these alternative ways, knowing the search features like knowledge panels, AI Overviews and more links are available to potentially drive traffic to your site, is a good thing.