Google has quietly launched a new AI search experiment called Learn About that summarizes content and provides navigation menus to explore related subtopics. This new way of content exploration uses drill-down navigation menus called interactive lists. If the user scrolls down far enough, they will eventually find links to human-generated content.

This new way of searching encourages exploration with an interface that continually displays additional summaries and links to human-generated content. The experience is similar to a children’s book “Choose Your Story” where the narrative changes depending on the reader’s choices.

Google’s learning initiative

“Learn About AI Search” is offered as part of Google Labs. It is also part of Google’s Learning Initiative. The Learning Initiative page provides links to Google Labs projects related to learning.

The learning initiative contains links to various projects:

• Learn more
• ship bot
• Illuminate
• NotebookLM

Pilot program (early access to AI products for K-12 and higher education)

Experiments for learning (AI learning tools that allow students to create songs or travel virtually to Mars)

The Google Learning Initiative page describes: Learn more about:

“Learn more
Explore new topics and deepen your understanding with this adaptable, conversational, AI-powered learning companion.”

Interactive list user interface

Find out more about it Interactive list Explore menus are illustrated with images, which is appealing since people are visually oriented. This makes it easier to understand the written content because the image reinforces the text.

The images in the interactive menu appear to be licensed from image providers such as Shutterstock, Adobe and Alamy. None of the images appear to be from the creator’s websites.

Screenshot of the interactive list navigation menu

Questions trigger a summary and drill-down navigation menu called an interactive list. These search results lead to related topics and increasingly detailed summaries and more interactive lists.

Below the interactive lists is a section called “Explore Similar Content,” which provides links to actual human-generated content such as YouTube videos and website content.

Below the links to the creator’s content is a group of buttons with the options to “Simplify,” “Go Deeper,” or “Get Images.” Below these three choices are speech bubbles with additional search queries on related topics.

Screenshot of the Explore Similar Content section.

There is also a navigation menu on the left that invites you to explore using the Interactive List menu.

Screenshot of the left navigation

Availability of Find out more about

Learn About is only available to users 18 years of age or older in the United States and is available in English.

Interestingly, it also answers questions in Spanish, but then quickly deletes the Spanish answer and replaces it with a statement that it doesn’t yet speak that language. However, if you ask them a question in English and then another question in Spanish, they may answer the question in English and provide links to human-generated content in Spanish. As shown in the image below, Google Learn About doesn’t just understand and respond to a Spanish language query.

Learn about will also understand it if the query contains a typo. The following query contains a typo in the word “Corner” which is missing the letter “R.”

The Spanish-language question I attempted was “Es posible a comer el ojo de un pescado,” which means, “Is it possible to eat the eye of a fish?”

Screenshot of the Spanish language query in Learn About

Privacy controls

Google’s Learn About has privacy controls, which are explained in a consent form that must be agreed to before using Learn About.

It contains information about how Google handles questions, a warning not to ask questions of a personal and private nature, and details about how Learn About manages the information it stores. It also states that while human reviewers will be allowed to access information shared with Learn About, they will be stripped of identifying information.

The consent agreement states:

“Google stores your Learn About activity in your Google Account for up to 18 months.

You can delete your Learn About data at any time by clicking the Settings button next to your Google Account profile photo in Learn About and then selecting “Delete Activity.”

To improve quality and improve our products (e.g., generative machine learning models that support Learn About), human reviewers read, comment on, and process your Learn About conversations. As part of this process, we take steps to protect your privacy. This includes disconnecting your Learn About conversations from your Google Account before reviewers can see or comment on them.

Please do not include any sensitive information or data in your conversations that you would not want a reviewer to see or for Google to use to improve our products, services, and machine learning technologies.”

Google Learn more about and SEO

There’s no indication if this will eventually be integrated into Google Search. Since it is part of Google’s learning initiative, it is possible that it will become a pure learning tool.

Try Learn About, an experimental project from Google Labs.

Featured image from Shutterstock/Cast Of Thousands