Google has been experimenting with ways to search on smartphones since the dawn of Android, and the latest attempt involves drawing circles. Circle to Search allows users to draw a circle around information on their device screen to search for the highlighted item. While the feature is officially called Circle to Search, it also supports highlighting text and doodling on elements instead of drawing oval shapes.
Circle to Search works anywhere on your device, but you’ll have to long-press the Home button or navigation bar for those who use gestures to activate the feature before you start circling items. Google advertises this feature as a more convenient alternative to switching between various apps like screenshotting items and then using Google Lens.
Circle to Search uses Google’s AI-powered multisearch feature built into Google Lens and debuting in 2022. Multisearch supports multimodal search queries so you can use both text and images and change search parameters within the ‘Google app. Now you can ask more nuanced questions about concepts, ideas or topics. Google will provide well-summarized answers directly in the answer box without the need to scroll through pages of information.
Circle to Search launches globally on January 31st and will be exclusive to the Pixel 8 series and the new Samsung Galaxy S24 trio at launch. The feature is expected to arrive on more “premium Android smartphones” later this year. The updated multiple search functionality within the Google app is available to both Android and iOS users in the United States.
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