Google Lens launched in 2017 as a Pixel-exclusive feature and arrived on all Android and iOS devices a few months later, in 2018, via Google Photos. Meanwhile, the service has grown and grown and apparently so grown now that Google feels like it belongs on its home page.
To quote Rajan Patel, Google’s VP of Engineering for Search, Image Search and Lens, it’s not often that the Google homepage changes. And so, when it does, it’s a big deal. Starting today, the Google Lens icon sits proudly next to the microphone within the search box on Google.com.
If you hit the lens icon, you will get what you see in the screenshot above. You can drag and drop any image, upload a file, or paste an image link. Once that’s done, you’ll get visual matches for your image from across the web, as well as the ability to extract (and translate) the text.
The important space that the lens icon now occupies could help more people realize they can visually search Google – the feature has always been there, but we bet it’s not very detectable. Only time will tell if this will change from now on.
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