Google is announcing a big change to the Google Images homepage in honor of the platform’s 25th anniversary this week. Instead of a mostly blank page with a search bar, the homepage will soon show you a bunch of images that it thinks you might like before you even start searching.
The company says the new “browseable” homepage features a “dynamic, immersive gallery of images from across the web — updated in real time and intelligently tailored to your unique interests.” Based on images Google has shared, the layout reminds me of platforms like Pinterest and Imgur that stuff a lot of images in one place for you to scroll through. You’ll also be able to save images in collections that you can reference later, and those collections will show up as tabs above the feed.
The new Google Images homepage will be rolling out over the “coming weeks” for signed-in desktop users in the US in English, according to Google.
In another image-related update, Google Search will soon be able to generate images in AI Overviews using its Nano Banana 2 Lite AI model. Examples from Google show how the feature could be used for comparing or visualizing home decor ideas.
In demo prompts, Google uses phrasing like “help me visualize” or “create a visual” to kick off the process of generating an image. But we’ve asked Google for details about what types of prompts trigger image generation and how the company prevents AI Overviews from generating AI images when it probably shouldn’t, like for current events.
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