Google Images just hit the quarter-century mark, and Google is observing the birthday of its picture-finding tool by adding an AI feature to generate the image you have in mind if it can’t locate one on the web.
“Sometimes, the perfect image is out there on the web, waiting to be found,” Google says. “But other times you might have a highly specific vision where an image doesn’t yet exist.”
This feature lets you start with a plain-English prompt and runs on Google’s Nano Banana image-generation model. It should be available soon enough, wherever you can already use Google’s AI Mode to create an image.
In addition to elevating AI image generation, Google Images is rolling out a new homepage design featuring what its post calls “a dynamic, immersive gallery of images from across the web—updated in real time and intelligently tailored to your unique interests.”
That description evokes the personalized gallery of images Instagram shows when you tap its search button but haven’t typed anything; if the new Google Images shows me a gallery that’s at least 75% airplanes, I’ll know its algorithm is operating in ways similar to Meta’s.
You’ll also be able to save images presented in this gallery to collections you can come back to later on, which reads more than a bit like Pinterest. Google says these gallery features will start showing up in desktop browsers in the US set to English “over the coming weeks.”
Do you have any Pinterest in this Collections feature? (Credit: Google)
The company’s post lauding its image-search tool’s silver anniversary also throws in a brief recap of its history. That began in July 2001, when Google added an image-search feature (in beta, of course) after seeing so many searches for a certain green Versace dress that Jennifer Lopez wore to the 2000 Grammy Awards.
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Since then, Google Images has added such features as the ability to conduct a reverse image search to discern the origin of a picture you’ve found, work through your phone’s cameracle to Search, and apply any of an increasing variety of AI search tools to pin down the picture you want
Google’s recap of its image search tool’s history does not, however, reveal an exact birthday. But Googling for “Google ‘Image Search’ beta” and limiting results to those published before July 31, 2001, located a July 12, 2001, New York Times report about the new feature.
“The service is still in beta while Google hones the technology, but Image Search does an impressive job with some requests,” the NYT’s Andrew Zipern wrote at the time, adding a parenthetical reference to a once-promising search competitor: “Altavista offers a similar service.”
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Rob Pegoraro
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Rob Pegoraro writes about interesting problems and possibilities in computers, gadgets, apps, services, telecom, and other things that beep or blink. He’s covered such developments as the evolution of the cell phone from 1G to 5G, the fall and rise of Apple, Google’s growth from obscure Yahoo rival to verb status, and the transformation of social media from CompuServe forums to Facebook’s billions of users. Pegoraro has met most of the founders of the internet and once received a single-word email reply from Steve Jobs.
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