Tag: Google

Tech News : Google Maps Now Much More Interactive

Posted on by Paul Stradling

Google says it’s transforming Google Maps from a navigation app into an AI-powered assistant that can help complete everyday tasks, allowing users to order food, compare hotels, buy event tickets and answer personalised travel questions without leaving the app.

New Agentic Capabilities

Google has unveiled a significant expansion of Ask Maps, the AI-powered conversational feature it introduced earlier this year.

Originally designed to answer natural-language questions about places, Ask Maps is now gaining a range of new “agentic” capabilities that allow it to take action as well as provide information.

For example, users can now ask complex questions such as finding a reasonably priced hotel close to restaurants and a gym, ordering a specific takeaway meal for collection on the way home, or discovering comedy shows and concerts taking place nearby. Rather than simply displaying search results, Ask Maps compares available options, checks prices, identifies availability and, where appropriate, begins the booking or ordering process.

As Google explains: “Ask Maps can now handle complex, multi-step tasks for you using new agentic capabilities.”

Food ordering is initially launching with partners including Square and Toast, with Uber Eats support planned, while hotel searches and local event discovery are rolling out in the United States before expanding more widely.

From Navigation To Personal Assistant

The latest update reflects Google’s much broader ambition for Maps. For many years, mapping applications have primarily answered questions such as where something is located or how to get there. Ask Maps is designed to understand what users are actually trying to achieve and then help complete the task.

For example, someone might ask: “Order spicy pad kee mao with seafood for me to pick up on my way home.” Ask Maps identifies suitable restaurants along the planned route, finds the requested meal and automatically places it into an online shopping basket ready for checkout.

Similarly, someone travelling for business could ask for a well-reviewed hotel close to a conference venue, within walking distance of restaurants and a gym. Rather than manually comparing multiple booking websites, Ask Maps performs much of that research automatically.

Google describes Ask Maps as “Google Maps’ biggest transformation in over a decade”, combining Gemini AI with what it calls “the world’s freshest map”.

Making Maps Personal

Another important addition is Personal Intelligence. Users can choose to connect Ask Maps with Gmail and, in the near future, Google Calendar. Once enabled, the assistant can use existing travel bookings, restaurant reservations and other relevant information to provide much more personalised recommendations.

For example, instead of asking users to explain where they are staying or when their flight departs, Ask Maps can already understand those details from their existing bookings and suggest nearby restaurants, attractions or suitable departure times for the airport.

However, Google is keen to stress that this feature is optional. As the company explains: “With Personal Intelligence in Ask Maps, you’re in control — connecting to your Gmail is off by default and you decide if you want to connect.”

Ask Maps can also remember previous conversations, allowing users to continue planning a trip without having to repeat information from earlier discussions.

Real-Time Information Becomes Even Smarter

Google is also extending Ask Maps’ access to live transport information.

The new transit widget provides continuously updated departure times for buses, trains, ferries and underground services, adjusting automatically if delays occur.

The company says this builds on Maps’ existing ability to report traffic congestion, accidents, roadworks and busy periods at shops or restaurants by bringing similar live information to public transport users.

Google is also trying to make it easier for users to contribute updates themselves. Rather than filling in structured forms, people can now submit corrections conversationally through Ask Maps. Even photographs of shopfronts can be analysed automatically to identify updated opening hours before asking users to confirm the changes.

These contributions continue to be reviewed using Google’s existing verification systems before being published.

The Changing Role Of Mapping Software

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the announcement is not any individual feature but the changing role of mapping software itself.

Until recently, AI assistants largely answered questions, while mapping applications focused on navigation. Ask Maps increasingly combines both capabilities, allowing conversations to become actions.

Instead of searching for restaurants, comparing hotels, checking transport times and visiting multiple booking websites separately, users are increasingly able to complete those tasks within a single conversation.

The update also demonstrates how Google’s various services are becoming more closely connected. Gmail, Maps, Calendar, Gemini and Google’s extensive location database are beginning to work together as a unified assistant rather than remaining separate applications.

For users, that promises greater convenience. For businesses, it could significantly change how customers discover products and services.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For businesses, Google’s latest update reinforces the growing importance of maintaining accurate, detailed and regularly updated business information within Google Maps. As AI assistants increasingly recommend restaurants, hotels, attractions and other services based on conversational requests rather than simple keyword searches, complete listings, accurate opening hours, high-quality photographs and positive customer reviews are likely to become even more valuable.

The announcement also illustrates how AI is steadily moving beyond answering questions towards completing real-world tasks. Businesses should expect customers to rely increasingly on AI assistants to compare suppliers, make bookings, place orders and recommend products, meaning visibility within these AI-powered services may become just as important as traditional web search optimisation.

Perhaps most importantly, Ask Maps demonstrates that AI assistants are becoming practical tools for everyday decision-making rather than simply conversational interfaces. As these systems become better at understanding personal preferences, remembering previous interactions and carrying out increasingly complex tasks, organisations will need to think carefully about how their products, services and information are presented to customers whose first interaction may increasingly be through an AI assistant rather than a conventional search engine.

Tech News : Google Now Labels AI-Made Ads

Posted on by Paul Stradling

Google is introducing new labels that tell users when advertisements have been created or edited using generative artificial intelligence, marking an important step towards greater transparency as AI-generated marketing becomes increasingly realistic and more difficult to distinguish from traditional advertising.

What Has Google Changed?

The new feature adds a “How this ad was made” section to Google’s existing My Ad Center panel, which users can open from the three-dot menu or information icon on adverts shown in Google Search, YouTube and Discover.

This means users will now be able to see whether generative AI played a role in creating or editing the advertisement they are viewing.

Google says the change is intended to help people better understand the advertising they encounter while making it easier for businesses to comply with evolving transparency requirements.

As the company explains: “We want to help people better understand the ads they see, while providing advertisers with straightforward tools to navigate evolving industry standards.”

The rollout also represents quite a significant expansion of Google’s AI disclosure efforts. For example, until now, mandatory disclosure primarily focused on election advertising, where synthetic or digitally altered content presents particular risks.

How Will The Labels Work?

The way the system operates depends on how an advertisement was created. For example, when advertisers use Google’s own generative AI advertising tools, AI disclosures are applied automatically within the My Ad Center panel.

However, businesses creating adverts using third-party AI tools will be able to indicate that generative AI was involved by using a new disclosure control provided by Google.

The company says it wants “to make managing AI disclosures as simple as possible for advertisers”, automatically adding disclosures where its own AI tools have been used while also allowing advertisers using external systems to identify AI-generated or AI-edited content themselves.

It should be noted that, in some countries, local regulations may also require AI labels to appear directly on advertisements rather than only within My Ad Center.

Opportunities (And Challenges)

There’s no doubt that generative AI has transformed the way advertising content can be created. For example, businesses can now generate highly realistic product images, promotional videos and marketing artwork without arranging expensive photo shoots or creating physical prototypes. AI can also modify existing images, replace backgrounds and generate entirely new scenes that appear convincingly real.

That creates significant opportunities for businesses, particularly smaller organisations that previously lacked access to professional creative resources. However, it also creates new challenges.

Consumers may increasingly struggle to distinguish between genuine photography and AI-generated imagery, particularly when advertisements depict products in idealised or entirely synthetic settings. Google, therefore, believes that greater transparency will help address those concerns.

Its support documentation explains that more advanced generative AI “can create content that resembles real people, places, or events”, making it increasingly important to provide users with additional context about how advertising content has been produced.

Part Of A Wider Push For AI Transparency

Google has already introduced several initiatives designed to increase transparency around AI-generated content, including embedding imperceptible SynthID signals into content produced by its own AI tools and requiring disclosure of synthetic or digitally altered content in election advertising.

The company also notes that existing advertising safeguards continue to apply regardless of whether AI has been used.

As Google explains: “We continue to prohibit misleading and deceptive ads, whether created with AI or not, to keep the platform safe for everyone.”

The latest announcement therefore represents less of a new advertising policy and more of an expansion of Google’s broader approach to AI accountability.

It also arrives as governments and regulators increasingly focus on AI transparency. In many parts of the world, businesses are likely to face growing expectations that AI-generated commercial content should be identifiable rather than indistinguishable from traditionally created material.

Building Trust In An AI World

Perhaps the most significant aspect of Google’s announcement is what it says about the future of digital trust.

Only a few years ago, AI-generated advertising was relatively easy to identify because images often contained obvious flaws or unrealistic details.

Today’s generative AI systems produce increasingly convincing content that can be difficult for many people to distinguish from genuine photography.

As that capability continues to improve, transparency may become just as important as creativity.

Rather than asking whether businesses should use AI in marketing, the conversation is increasingly becoming one of how openly they should communicate its use.

Google’s new labels suggest that AI disclosure could gradually become a normal part of digital advertising rather than an exceptional requirement.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For businesses, Google’s new labels should not be viewed as a warning against using AI in marketing. On the contrary, generative AI offers organisations of every size the opportunity to create professional-quality advertising more quickly and at lower cost than ever before.

However, the announcement also highlights that transparency is becoming an increasingly important part of digital marketing.

It seems that customers are now placing growing value on authenticity, while regulators and technology platforms are introducing new ways to identify AI-generated content. Businesses that embrace AI while remaining open about how it is being used are therefore likely to strengthen trust rather than undermine it.

The wider lesson here goes beyond advertising. As AI becomes embedded across customer communications, websites, images, video and marketing campaigns, organisations should expect transparency to become an increasingly important part of brand reputation. Google’s latest announcement suggests the future of AI-powered marketing will depend not only on creating compelling content, but also on ensuring customers understand how that content was produced.

Use Chrome To Send Someone Directly To The Important Part Of A Web Page

Posted on by Paul Stradling

If you need to share a particular sentence or paragraph from a long web page, Google Chrome can create a link that takes the recipient directly to that section and highlights the relevant text.

This is useful for sharing technical instructions, online guidance, policies, supplier terms or lengthy articles without making the recipient search through the entire page.

How To Create A Link To Highlighted Text

On a computer:

– Open the relevant web page in Chrome.

– Highlight the exact text you want to share.

– Right-click the highlighted text.

– Select Copy link to highlight.

– Paste the link into an email, Teams message or document.

When the recipient opens the link in a compatible browser, the page should open at the relevant section with the selected text highlighted.

Why This Is Useful

Ordinary web links usually take someone to the top of a page, leaving them to find the relevant information themselves. Copy link to highlight makes sharing more precise by taking them straight to an important paragraph, instruction, clause or other piece of information.

One Thing To Be Aware Of

The feature may not work with all selected content. If the option is unavailable or the link doesn’t work as expected, send the normal page link and explain where the relevant section appears.

This simple Chrome feature can save time, reduce confusion and make it easier to direct colleagues and customers to the exact information they need.

Tech Tip : Turn Off Gemini AI Distractions In Google Docs

Posted on by Paul Stradling

If Gemini AI prompts in Google Docs are getting in the way of your writing, there’s a quick way to turn them off and regain a cleaner, more focused workspace.

Why This Matters

Google has been steadily integrating Gemini into Google Docs, Sheets, Gmail, and other Workspace applications. While many users find the AI features useful, others prefer a cleaner writing environment without AI prompts appearing on screen.

Reducing these prompts can make documents feel less cluttered, help you focus on writing, and give you more control over when and how you use AI tools.

How To Hide The Gemini Bottom Bar In Google Docs

If you see a Gemini prompt box at the bottom of your document, you can hide it:

  • Open your Google Doc.
  • Click Gemini in the menu bar.
  • Select Bottom Bar Preferences.
  • Turn off the Gemini bottom bar.

This removes the AI prompt panel from the bottom of the document while allowing you to access Gemini manually if you need it later.

How To Reduce AI Features Across Google Workspace

You can also disable some Workspace smart features that power AI-driven suggestions and personalisation.

  • Open Gmail.
  • Click the Settings cog.
  • Select See All Settings.
  • Scroll down to Google Workspace Smart Features.
  • Click Manage Workspace Smart Feature Settings.
  • Turn off Smart Features in Google Workspace if you no longer want these features enabled.

This setting affects several Google Workspace applications and may reduce some AI-powered suggestions and prompts.

Things To Keep In Mind

Turning off Workspace smart features does not necessarily remove every Gemini capability from your Google account. Some Gemini features may still be available depending on your Google Workspace subscription, administrator settings, and the specific applications you use.

However, these settings can significantly reduce AI prompts and create a cleaner, less distracting workspace for users who prefer to write and work without constant AI assistance.

A Cleaner Way To Work

AI tools can be useful when you need them, but many people don’t want them appearing every time they open a document. Taking a few moments to adjust these settings can help create a simpler, more focused Google Docs experience while still allowing you to use Gemini when you choose to.

Tech News : Court Rules AI Overviews Are Google’s Words

Posted on by Paul Stradling

A German court has ruled that Google can be held directly responsible for false information generated by its AI Overviews feature, a decision that could have significant implications for AI-powered search engines and chatbots worldwide.

What Happened?

The case centres on Google’s AI Overviews, the AI-generated summaries that increasingly appear at the top of search results and attempt to answer users’ questions directly without requiring them to visit other websites.

The ruling came after two German publishers discovered that AI Overviews had falsely associated them with scams, subscription traps, and questionable business practices. According to court documents, the AI-generated summaries created links and allegations that did not appear in the sources cited by Google.

The Regional Court of Munich issued an injunction preventing Google from repeating the statements and concluded that the AI-generated content should be treated as Google’s own speech rather than merely a summary of information published elsewhere.

Why The Court Reached This Decision

The most significant aspect of the ruling is the distinction the judges drew between traditional search results and AI-generated answers.

For many years, search engines have generally benefited from limited liability protections because they primarily act as intermediaries, directing users to content created by third parties. If a search result links to an inaccurate webpage, responsibility normally rests with the publisher of that page rather than the search engine itself.

AI Overviews operate differently. According to the Munich court’s judgment, AI Overviews do not simply display links or snippets. Instead, they create “independent, new and substantive statements” that are generated by Google’s AI systems and presented to users as complete answers. The judges noted that Google controls the AI model and the algorithms that produce these summaries and therefore has responsibility for the content they generate.

The court also highlighted that the disputed statements were not simply copied from third-party websites. In several cases, the AI generated connections and allegations that were not present in the source material at all.

Why Google’s Defence Failed

Google argued that users can inspect the sources linked within AI Overviews and therefore verify information for themselves. However, the court rejected that argument.

The judges compared AI Overviews to headlines or teaser text that many readers consume without investigating further. They concluded that if an AI-generated answer is presented as a complete and understandable response, the fact that users could conduct additional research does not remove responsibility from the party that published it.

The court also found that AI Overviews are not essential to the functioning of search in the same way that traditional search results are. Users can still find information through ordinary links without requiring an AI-generated summary.

That distinction helped the judges justify imposing a higher level of responsibility on Google for AI-generated content than has historically applied to search engines.

Google Plans To Appeal

Google has confirmed that it intends to challenge the ruling. A company spokesperson told Reuters that the case focuses on specific errors rather than the fundamental operation of AI Overviews and said the company disagrees with the court’s conclusions.

Google also argued that the overwhelming majority of AI Overviews are accurate, while acknowledging that AI systems can occasionally miss context or misinterpret information. The company says it takes action when policy violations are identified.

The case remains a preliminary injunction rather than a final appellate ruling, meaning the legal position could still change as appeals progress.

A New Liability Challenge For AI

AI systems increasingly generate answers by analysing information from multiple sources and presenting users with a single, consolidated response. That approach is now common across search engines, chatbots, virtual assistants, and business productivity tools.

The Munich court’s reasoning suggests that once an AI system begins creating its own narrative, combining information from multiple sources and generating new conclusions, the provider may no longer be able to rely on the legal protections traditionally available to search engines and hosting platforms.

If that principle survives appeal, it could affect a wide range of AI products, including AI-powered search tools, enterprise assistants, customer service bots, and generative AI platforms.

Also, regulators across Europe are paying closer attention to AI transparency, accountability, and safety. Questions about who should be responsible when an AI system produces false, defamatory, or harmful information are becoming increasingly important as these tools become more widely used by businesses and consumers alike.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Most businesses are unlikely to see any immediate operational impact from the ruling, but it highlights an issue that organisations should already be considering.

AI-generated answers can appear authoritative and convincing while still containing errors, misunderstandings, or entirely fabricated information. As AI tools become more deeply embedded into search engines, productivity software, and business workflows, organisations should avoid treating AI-generated content as automatically accurate.

The ruling also serves as a reminder that businesses should monitor how AI systems describe their brands, products, and services online. If an AI-generated summary contains false information, legal avenues for challenging those statements may become clearer if courts increasingly view AI output as the responsibility of the platform that generated it.

More broadly, the case signals that regulators and courts are beginning to move beyond the question of what AI can do and focus instead on who should be accountable when it gets things wrong.

Featured Article : UK Publishers Can Opt-Out Of Google AI Search Results

Posted on by Paul Stradling

The UK has become the first country in the world to require Google to let publishers opt out of AI-generated search results without sacrificing their visibility in traditional search rankings.

A New Rule For AI Search

The change follows intervention by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which has imposed a new conduct requirement on Google under the UK’s Digital Markets regime.

The regulator says the move is designed to give publishers greater control over how their content is used within Google’s increasingly AI-driven search experience, while also improving transparency for users.

In practical terms, publishers will be able to prevent their content from appearing in AI-generated search features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode while remaining fully indexed and ranked within conventional Google Search results.

The CMA describes this as a “world-first” requirement and says it will help secure “a fairer deal for publishers and consumers” as AI becomes more deeply embedded within search services.

Why Publishers Have Been Concerned

The dispute centres on a growing tension between AI search systems and the websites that provide much of the information they rely on.

For decades, publishers have accepted that Google could index their content because search results generally sent visitors back to their websites. However, AI-generated summaries increasingly answer users’ questions directly on the search page, reducing the need for people to click through to the original source.

Many publishers argue that this allows AI systems to benefit from their content while reducing the traffic that helps fund journalism, research, reviews, and other forms of online publishing.

Recognising those concerns, the CMA says publishers will now have “effective tools to prevent their content being used to power AI features in search, such as AI Overviews”. The regulator believes this will place publishers “in a stronger position to negotiate content deals with Google”.

The move also extends beyond search summaries. Following consultation feedback, Google will be required to allow publishers to opt out of having their content used for the “fine-tuning” of AI models, giving them greater control over how their material is used across a wider range of AI applications.

How Google’s New Controls Will Work

Google has already begun testing the new controls with a subset of UK website owners and plans to roll them out globally.

According to the Google blog, website owners will gain access to “a new control that lets website owners manage how their links and content appear in generative AI Search features”.

The company says website owners will be able to decide “if they want their site to appear in and help ground responses in our generative AI Search features”.

Importantly, Google has confirmed that publishers who choose to opt out will not be penalised in traditional search rankings. As the company explains, “This control will not be used as a ranking signal for search results outside of these generative AI Search features.”

That distinction is crucial because many publishers have previously argued they faced an impossible choice between allowing AI systems to use their content or disappearing from Google’s search ecosystem altogether.

The controls will also be accompanied by new reporting tools within Google Search Console, giving website owners greater visibility into how their content appears within AI-generated search experiences.

A Bigger Change In Search

The announcement comes at a time when Google is rapidly transforming how search works.

Google says AI Overviews now reaches more than 2.5 billion monthly users, while AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users. The company argues that people are increasingly turning to generative AI tools to help them “find, sort through and understand information”.

Google also maintains that AI search creates new opportunities for publishers rather than simply diverting traffic away from them. The company says AI features are designed “to help people find and visit great websites” while helping publishers “strengthen their audiences”.

To support that goal, Google says it has increased the number of links appearing inside AI-generated responses and is continuing to experiment with new ways of encouraging users to visit source websites.

However, the CMA clearly believes safeguards are needed as these systems evolve. For example, CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said: “With features like AI Overviews rapidly reshaping online search, it is crucial that content publishers, including news organisations, have appropriate bargaining power over how their content is used.”

The regulator has also required Google to improve attribution, ensuring publisher content is accompanied by clear links when it appears inside AI-generated search responses.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For businesses, the decision highlights how quickly AI is changing the economics of online visibility.

Whether organisations publish news, research, product information, professional advice, or marketing content, the way that material is discovered online is evolving rapidly as AI-generated answers become more common.

The CMA’s intervention suggests regulators are increasingly concerned about ensuring a fair exchange of value between AI platforms and the organisations that create the content those platforms rely upon.

The wider significance extends beyond publishers alone. As AI systems become more deeply integrated into search, businesses will need to think carefully about how their content is being used, where their traffic comes from, and how they maintain visibility in a world where users increasingly receive answers without leaving the search page.

Google’s new controls may not resolve every debate around AI and content ownership, but they do represent one of the first major attempts anywhere in the world to give content creators more control over how their material is used within AI-powered search systems.

Tech Tip : Use Google Lens To Copy Text From Videos And Presentations

Posted on by Paul Stradling

Google Lens in Chrome can extract text directly from paused videos, webinars, Teams recordings, training videos, and online presentations, making it easy to copy URLs, settings, serial numbers, product codes, or notes without having to type them manually.

Why It Works

Most people associate Google Lens with photographs, but it can also analyse any image displayed in your browser, including individual frames from videos.

This means you can quickly capture information displayed on screen, even if the video creator hasn’t provided it elsewhere.

It’s particularly useful for copying technical settings, website addresses, software licence information, presentation content, contact details, or troubleshooting instructions from training videos and webinars.

How To Use It

1. Open the video in Google Chrome.

2. Pause the video on the frame containing the text you want to copy.

3. Right-click the video frame.

4. Select ‘Search Image With Google Lens’.

5. When the Lens panel opens, select the ‘Text’ option.

6. Highlight the text and click ‘Copy Text’.

A Few Things To Remember

Google Lens works best when the text is clear and reasonably large on screen.

It can be used with YouTube videos, online training platforms, recorded Teams meetings, webinars, presentations, screenshots, and many other types of visual content.

For business users, it’s a simple way to save time and avoid mistakes when copying information from video-based training or support materials.

Tech Tip : Use Google To See What Documents Others Can Find About Your Business

Posted on by Paul Stradling

This simple Google search can help you discover whether documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and other business files are publicly accessible online, allowing you to identify potential information leaks before someone else does. Here’s how to check.

Why It Works

Many businesses focus on protecting their systems but rarely check what information search engines can already see.

Google indexes far more than websites. It can also index PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and other files that have been made publicly accessible, sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally, and sometimes long after they were thought to have been removed.

How To Check

1. Open Google Search.

2. Search for PDF documents containing your company name:

"Your Company Name" filetype:pdf

3. Search for Excel spreadsheets containing your company name:

"Your Company Name" filetype:xlsx

4. Search for Word documents containing your company name:

"Your Company Name" filetype:docx

5. Search for PowerPoint presentations containing your company name:

"Your Company Name" filetype:pptx

6. Review any files that appear in the results.

Useful Variations

To focus on files hosted on your own website, search:

PDF files:

site:yourcompanywebsite.co.uk filetype:pdf

Excel spreadsheets:

site:yourcompanywebsite.co.uk filetype:xlsx

Word documents:

site:yourcompanywebsite.co.uk filetype:docx

PowerPoint presentations:

site:yourcompanywebsite.co.uk filetype:pptx

This can sometimes uncover files that are no longer linked from your website but are still publicly accessible and indexed by Google.

Why This Is Useful

This quick check can help uncover old proposals, reports, presentations, price lists, spreadsheets, policy documents, or other files that may contain information you would rather not make easily discoverable. It is also a useful way to understand what a potential customer, competitor, journalist, cyber criminal, or AI system might learn about your business simply by searching online.

Tech News : Google Smart Glasses Ready For A Comeback

Posted on by Paul Stradling

More than a decade after the failure of Google Glass, Google is returning to smart eyewear with a new generation of AI-powered glasses that could signal the beginning of a broader move away from smartphones and towards always-available digital assistants.

Why Google Is Trying Again

When Google Glass launched in 2013, it was widely seen as a glimpse into the future. However, concerns over privacy, a high price tag and limited practical usefulness meant the product struggled to gain mainstream acceptance before being withdrawn. Now it seems Google believes the technology landscape has changed.

At its I/O developer conference, the company unveiled new intelligent eyewear built around its Gemini AI platform. The first products, arriving later this year through partnerships with Samsung, Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, will provide spoken AI assistance through discreet speakers built into the frames.

Google says the glasses are designed to provide “help in the moment without taking you out of it” while allowing users to “stay hands-free and heads up”.

Those phrases may sound like marketing language, but they reveal something much more significant about Google’s ambitions.

The Smartphone Is The Real Target

The new glasses are not simply another wearable gadget. In fact, Google appears to be positioning them as a new way of interacting with technology that reduces reliance on phones and screens. Instead of taking a device out of your pocket, opening an app and navigating menus, the idea is that users can simply ask Gemini for help.

Google says the glasses can provide navigation, send messages, summarise missed communications, translate speech and text, take photographs and even complete multi-step tasks such as ordering coffee through connected services.

This reflects a much broader trend across the technology industry. Increasingly, major companies are trying to make AI more accessible by embedding it into everyday activities rather than requiring users to open dedicated apps.

In effect, Google seems to be attempting to make Gemini a constant companion rather than a destination.

Why It Could Be Different This Time

One of the biggest challenges facing Google Glass was that the technology simply was not ready. For example, voice assistants were relatively basic, artificial intelligence was far less capable, and many of the features people expected from smart glasses were either unreliable or unavailable. However, today’s environment looks very different.

Modern AI systems can understand natural conversation, translate languages in real time, recognise objects and locations, summarise information, and perform increasingly complex tasks. The arrival of Gemini gives Google a much more capable platform to build around than was available a decade ago.

As Google explains on its blog, users will be able to “ask questions about the world around you” and request help executing tasks on their behalf.

In many ways, the AI revolution may have solved the biggest problem Google Glass faced: giving people a compelling reason to wear it.

Meta Has Already Proven There Is Demand

Google is also benefiting from something it lacked the first time around, which was evidence that consumers are willing to wear smart glasses.

Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses have reportedly sold around seven million units, demonstrating that there is a growing market for eyewear that combines cameras, microphones, speakers and AI capabilities.

That success has encouraged a growing number of competitors to enter the market. Snap is expected to release new smart glasses, Apple is reportedly developing its own products, and several other technology firms are exploring similar concepts.

What was once a niche category is increasingly becoming one of the industry’s most closely watched battlegrounds.

Gemini Is The Real Product

Although much of the attention will focus on the glasses themselves, the real story is arguably Gemini. It could be said that the glasses themselves simply provide Gemini with direct awareness of a user’s surroundings.

By combining cameras, microphones, location information and AI reasoning, Google is creating a system that can understand what a user is seeing, where they are, and what they may need help with at that moment. That creates possibilities that extend well beyond voice assistants.

Whether helping someone navigate a city, understand a foreign-language menu, identify a landmark or complete a task without touching their phone, the glasses effectively become a delivery mechanism for Gemini’s intelligence.

There Are Still Privacy Questions

Despite the technological advances, some familiar concerns remain. For example, the original Google Glass generated significant criticism because people were uncomfortable with the idea of being recorded without their knowledge. Similar concerns have emerged around Meta’s smart glasses, which can capture photos and video in public spaces.

Google has so far focused its announcements on features and functionality rather than detailed privacy safeguards. As adoption grows, questions around consent, data collection and the use of AI-enabled cameras are likely to become increasingly important.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Google’s latest announcement is about far more than just smart glasses. The company is actually signalling its belief that AI assistants are gradually moving beyond phones, laptops and web browsers into the physical world. Instead of opening applications and searching for information, users may increasingly rely on AI systems that understand their surroundings and provide assistance in real time.

Hands-free access to navigation, translation, customer information, scheduling, messaging and AI assistance could make these devices particularly useful for mobile workers, engineers, delivery drivers, field service teams and healthcare staff. Rather than stopping to check a phone or laptop, employees could receive information, complete tasks and interact with business systems while continuing with their work. As AI capabilities improve, smart glasses could also support workplace training, remote assistance and customer service, potentially helping organisations improve productivity and reduce friction in everyday processes.

Whether smart glasses ultimately replace smartphones remains uncertain, and questions around privacy, security and workplace policies will need careful consideration. What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that Google, Meta, Apple and others all believe the next major computing platform will place AI much closer to the user. If they are right, businesses may soon need to think not only about how employees use AI on screens, but also how they use it while moving through the real world.