Google Search: Google reportedly working on chat-head style Search shortcut – Times of India

Google is reportedly working on a new Search option shortcut. The floating shortcut will let you conduct a voice or text search quickly from your home screen. The shortcut will appear as a chat-head style button that can be placed either on the left or right edge of the home screen. The feature was recently spotted by 9to5Google during the APK teardown of the Google Home app’s beta version 12.44.
As per the report, the shortcut turns pill-shaped when dragged and it can be placed at the centre of the home screen just like any other widget. According to the images shared by the publication, there are two buttons in the shortcut – a four coloured magnifying glass button for text search and a button with a microphone icon for the voice search. Because it’s a chat head and not a widget, it can be found over any app, not just the home screen.
The report further reveals that when you launch the shortcut, Google will show a prompt with two options – “Yes, Keep it” and “Remove”. The users will also receive a prompt at the bottom of the screen with options “Hide bubble temporarily” and “Turn off this feature” when dragging the shortcut. As of now, the company has not revealed any details about the floating Search shortcut as it is still under development.
Recently, Google also announced that it is adding new artificial intelligence features using Multitask Unified Model (MuM) for Lens and Search. As per the tech giant, these new AI advances make it easier to explore and understand new topics. The company is also making it easy to zoom in and out of a topic with new features to refine and broaden searches. A new visual results page is also added to the Search option. The new page shows a visually rich page from across the web, with articles, images, videos and more that you can scroll through.