Aggregated relative search frequencies offer a unique composite signal reflecting people's habits, concerns, interests, intents, and general information needs, which are not found in other readily available datasets. Temporal search trends have been successfully used in time series modeling across a variety of domains such as infectious diseases, unemployment rates, and retail sales. However, most existing applications require curating specialized datasets of individual keywords, queries, or query clusters, and the search data need to be temporally aligned with the outcome variable of interest. We propose a novel approach for generating an aggregated and anonymized representation of search interest as foundation features at the community level for geospatial modeling. We benchmark these features using spatial datasets across multiple domains. In zip codes with a population greater than 3000 that cover over 95% of the contiguous US population, our models for predicting missing values in a 20% set of holdout counties achieve an average $R^2$ score of 0.74 across 21 health variables, and 0.80 across 6 demographic and environmental variables. Our results demonstrate that these search features can be used for spatial predictions without strict temporal alignment, and that the resulting models outperform spatial interpolation and state of the art methods using satellite imagery features.

Microsoft just announced that the latest update for the Photos app in Windows will introduce a new image search feature. As of right now, the update is rolling out to Windows 11 users in the Insider program across all Insider channels. After that's done, it will roll out to Windows 10 users in the Beta and Release Preview channels. And then, of course, it'll be publicly available at some point in the future. Here's how the new image search feature will work: When you open an image in Photos, you'll see a button for the Visual Search with Bing feature at the bottom of the app window.

The American dream used to involve purchasing a home. As huge corporations buy up residential stock and wages lay stagnant, the new American dream is to scroll through Zillow and salivate at what could have been, if only we had been born into one of those families with money. To that end, Zillow just upped its AI game to make it easier to find a dream home that you'll never be able to afford. The popular real estate marketplace integrated some AI tools into its search feature last year, but it just released a fairly substantial software update that brings in more options. Users can now use natural language to find homes or rentals based on commute times or how far they are from schools or other points of interest.

Not long ago, Google pushed AI tools into ChromeOS in hopes that it would entice users away from Microsoft's automation systems and toward Google's more affordable and accessible machines. This time, everyone is getting extra AI tools as Google brings updates to the Chrome browser, which is probably the most-used desktop application in the world. New Gemini AI integrations include more flexible searches within images (under the Google Lens label) and easier-to-use tools for finding information in both your tabs and history. Up until now, it's been fairly simple to perform a reverse image search (i.e., submitting an image and getting back identical or extremely similar images found on the web) with just a right-click in Chrome. In today's update, a more universal image search feature is rolling out.

OpenAI is testing a new search engine that uses generative artificial intelligence to produce results, raising the prospect of a significant challenge to Google's dominance of the online search market. SearchGPT will launch with a small group of users and publishers before a potential wider rollout, the company announced on Thursday. OpenAI ultimately intends to incorporate the search features into ChatGPT, rather offer a standalone product. OpenAI said SearchGPT is a temporary prototype that will combine the company's AI models, such as ChatGPT, with the ability to search the internet. It will respond conversationally to searches, while providing up-to-date information with "clear links to relevant sources".

The creators of ChatGPT are poised to release a new search product to rival Google, according to reports. The new feature, expected to be confirmed by Microsoft-backed OpenAI on Monday, will allow users to search the web via the popular chatbot. The details of how this will function have not been revealed, but it is likely that the AI will search the web for users and generate results based on what it finds. For example, this could let users ask ChatGPT a question and receive much more detailed answers that cite web sources like Wikipedia or online blogs. If true, it could present the biggest challenge yet to Google's search engine supremacy.

OpenAI is reportedly working on a search feature for ChatGPT that could make the chatbot a veritable alternative to Google Search. According to Bloomberg, the company is currently developing the capability, which can scour the web for answers to your queries and spit out results complete with citations to their sources. ChatGPT could take information from Wikipedia or blog posts, for instance, and link to their original pages when you ask it questions. Bloomberg says that in one version of the experimental search function, ChatGPT can show you images along with its written responses whenever they're relevant. For example, if the chatbot deems illustrated instructions or diagrams useful for an inquiry, such as "how to change a doorknob" or "how to clean a split-type AC," then it could include them in its responses.

Google is reportedly drawing up plans to charge for AI-enhanced search features, in what would be the biggest shake up to the company's revenue model in its history. The radical shift is a natural consequence of the vast expense required to provide the service, experts say, and would leave every leading player in the sector offering some variety of subscription model to cover its costs. Google's proposals, first reported by the Financial Times, would entail the company exclusively offering its new search feature to users of its premium subscription services, which customers already have to sign up to if they want to use artificial intelligence assistants in other Google tools such as Gmail and its office suite. With that search experience, being trialled in beta for selected users, Google's generative AI is used to respond to queries directly with a single answer, in a similar style to the conversational approach of ChatGPT and competitors. "AI search is more expensive to compute than Google's traditional search processes. So in charging for AI search Google will be seeking to at least recoup these costs," said Heather Dawe, chief data scientist at the digital transformation consultancy UST.

Google is considering charging for new premium artificial intelligence-powered search features, according to a Financial Times report that cites three people familiar with the matter. This includes looking at options such as adding certain AI-powered search features to its premium subscription services, which offer the company's Gemini AI assistant in Gmail and Google Docs, the newspaper reported. Google's free search engine would remain so, and ads would continue even for subscribers. In response to an inquiry about the report, a Google spokesperson tells TIME in an email: "We're not working on or considering an ad-free search experience. As we've done many times before, we'll continue to build new premium capabilities and services to enhance our subscription offerings across Google. We don't have anything to announce right now." "For years, we've been reinventing search to help people access information in the way that's most natural to them," the statement also said.

Google just announced that it's expanding its recently-launched Circle to Search tool to include language translation, as part of an update to various core services. Circle to Search, as the name suggests, already lets some Android users research stuff by drawing a circle around an object. The forthcoming language translation component won't even require a drawn circle. Google says people will just have to long press the home button or the navigation bar and look for the translate icon. The company showed the tech quickly translating an entire menu with one long press.