By introducing the new features in Google Search and Google Maps, the company is optimistic for improved customer engagement.

In Google's Search on Event last week, the tech giant detailed its Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning capabilities to improve search operations. Search is a widely used software-based application of the company and is related to another of Google's software application Google Maps. The tech giant is amongst the top companies leveraging artificial intelligence and its subsets to its products. The Search application of Google assists users by leveraging Natural Language Processing and Optical Character Recognition. By deploying this new strategy, the company is optimistic to improve the customer-services and revise customer engagement. 

Spelling-checker

To improve the ability to understand misspelled words and cater to the several queries that the Google Search receives every day, the company has introduced a new spelling algorithm that uses a deep neural network to significantly improve our ability to decipher misspellings. Google said that the new language model contains 680 million parameters, which runs in three milliseconds. Prabhakar Raghavan, Senior Vice President, Search & Assistant said, "This single change makes a greater improvement to spelling than all of our improvements over the last five years."

Passages Modifier

To simplify the task of specific searches, whose answers might be buried deep in a web page, Google's new AL and ML strategy is not only just indexing the web pages, but also individual passages from the pages. By better understanding, the relevancy of specific passages, and not just the overall page, the algorithm find that needle-in-a-haystack information which the user is looking for. This technology will improve 7% of search queries across all languages as Google plans to roll it out globally.

Subtopics

 To understand the subtopics around an interest, Google has applied neural nets which help to deliver a greater diversity of content when the user applies search option for something broad. Regarding this, Prabhakar Raghavan said, "As an example, if you search for "home exercise equipment," we can now understand relevant subtopics, such as budget equipment, premium picks, or small space ideas, and show a wider range of content for you on the search results page. We'll start rolling this out by the end of this year."

Busyness Information

Google Maps has been in use since 2016. Its AI algorithm assists the user to identify a restaurant or hotel nearby, as well as helps the user in finding the shortest travelling option. Owing to the COVID 19 pandemic, as many economies are now opening up, Google has launched busyness information. This new program helps in calculating the busyness insights, by analyzing, aggregating and anonymizing location history data from people who have opted to turn this setting on Google Account. This data is instrumental in calculating the busyness of a place for every hour of the week. Matt D'Zmura, Software engineer of Google Maps said, "The busiest hour becomes our benchmark—and we then display busyness data for the rest of the week relative to that hour." 

"Gleaning insights from Location History data in real-time, our systems are able to detect this spike in busyness and display it as "Live" data in Google Maps so you can see how busy the shop is right now—even if it varies drastically from its typical busyness levels", added Matt. 

This expansion includes more outdoor areas, like beaches and parks, and essential places, like grocery stores, gas stations, and pharmacies. Busyness information will surface in directions and right on the maps, so the users don't even need to search for a specific place to see how busy it is. The company says that this will soon be available to Android, iOS and desktop users worldwide.

Up-to-date Business Information

 Owing to the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on businesses, the company has launched Duplex conversational technology, to call businesses and verify their information on Maps and Search. Since April 2020, the company notified that this information has helped make more than 3 million updates, including updated hours of operation, delivery and pickup options, and store inventory information for in-demand products such as face masks, hand sanitizer and disinfectant. Google said that these updates have been viewed more than 20 billion times.

Dane Glasgow, VP of Product, Google Maps said, "You can quickly know what safety precautions a business is taking, such as if they require customers to wear masks and make reservations, if there's plexiglass onsite, or if their staff takes regular temperature checks."

Live View Feature of the Google Maps

Google Maps launched the Live View feature last year to help the users in navigating different places. By integrating the Augmented Reality (AR), into the Live View feature, the user can see arrows, directions, and distance markers placed right on top of every world so the user spends less time figuring out which way they should head. 

Mirko Ranieri, Product Manager, Google Maps said, "You'll also be able to see nearby landmarks so you can quickly and easily orient yourself and understand your surroundings. Live View will show you how far away certain landmarks are from you and what direction you need to go to get there. These landmarks can include iconic places, like the Empire State Building in New York and the Pantheon in Rome, and easily recognizable places, like local parks and tourist attractions."

Outlook

Over the years, the company has launched products and services that proved to revolutionize the digital transformation world. Looking at the history of Google products, the new launches display a promising outlook.

Cheers to the New Google Experience!