Google is testing two exciting new features in its Discover feed that could change how we read news on our phones. These updates are being tested on both Android and iPhone apps, and they’re designed to make reading news faster and easier.
What Are These New Features?
AI-Powered News Summaries
Instead of just showing you a headline and the name of the news website, Google Discover now shows short, three-line summaries of news stories. These summaries are created by AI (artificial intelligence) that reads multiple news sources and creates a quick overview.
Here’s how it works:
- You’ll see a brief summary instead of just a headline
- Small icons show which news websites the summary came from
- You can tap on these icons to see the full list of sources
- At the bottom, there’s a note saying “Generated with AI, which can make mistakes”
One-Tap Bookmarking
Google has also added a “Save” button right on the news cards. This makes it super easy to bookmark articles you want to read later. The saved articles appear in the Activity tab of the Google app, so you can find them easily.
Why These Changes Matter
Faster News Reading
With AI summaries, you can quickly understand the main points of a story without having to click and read the full article. This saves time and helps you decide which stories are worth reading in full.
Better Organization
The new bookmark feature makes it much easier to save interesting articles. No more losing track of stories you wanted to read later.
Honest About AI
Google is being transparent by telling users that AI created the summaries and that it can make mistakes. This helps people use the feature more wisely.
Possible Concerns
Less Website Visits
Since people can get the main points from summaries, they might not click through to read full articles. This could mean fewer visitors for news websites.
AI Accuracy Issues
AI summaries might sometimes miss important details or get things wrong. It’s still important to read full articles for complete information.
Changing Reading Habits
These features might make people read news more quickly and passively, which could change how we consume information.
What’s Coming Next?
Right now, these features are still being tested and aren’t available to everyone yet. If the tests go well, Google might roll them out to all users. This could make Google Discover focus more on quick summaries rather than sending people to full articles.
The Bottom Line
Google is making Discover smarter and more user-friendly. The AI summaries help you understand news faster, while the easy bookmarking helps you save stories for later. While these changes have some potential drawbacks for news websites, they could make reading news more efficient for everyday users.
These updates show how AI is becoming a bigger part of how we get our news. As these features develop, both readers and news publishers will need to adapt to this new way of sharing and consuming information.
What do you think about these new Google Discover features? Will they change how you read news on your phone?