Google for India 2023: AI updates, Bard's Indian language support, Govt. partnerships, and more

Google on Thursday held its ninth edition of the Google for India event in New Delhi. The event focused on all developments and updates coming to Google apps and services in the region. Some of the highlights of the event include a focus on AI, an improved shopping experience, updates to ONDC, other partnerships with Govt. bodies, and more.

SGE updates

Google announced that its experimental Search Generative Experience (SGE) is getting support for images and video. So far the experimental feature used to compile information from various articles online and provide you with a summary of the data gathered. Now, with the new update, it will also show images and videos. Interestingly, it will also have the capability to generate images based on your text prompt.

SGE is also getting user reviews making it easier for everyone to decide upon a product or service. Additionally, it will also show user reviews of 100+ government schemes. For instance, if you type ‘Ayushman Bharat’ on Google, it will not only show the information but also user reviews about the government scheme.

Google Bard gets support for 9 Indian languages

Google announced that Bard is getting support for Indian languages back in July. It reaffirmed the same today at the Google for India event. Google Bard can now respond in nine Indian languages  — Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, and Urdu.

Improved shopping experience, merchant updates

Google has revealed that it’s enhancing the shopping experience for users. Search will now show nearly physical stores more prominently. Users will also be able to see information like shipping timelines, inventory, and pricing of products from neighborhood stores.

The Business messages feature is coming to search by the end of 2023. It will allow users to directly chat with the merchant from search. All the conversations will remain private in a chat.

Merchants will now be able to easily display a catalogue of their products online, allowing customers to browse and purchase products conveniently.

Google and ONDC partnership

Google is also partnering with the government’s ONDC platform. One of the major benefits of this partnership will be to farmers. It will let farmers directly sell their produce online through ONDC, solving the major concern of farmers in the country.

This feature will arrive later this year.

Additionally, Google also announced its partnership with Bhashini and MeitY.

Google Pay updates, Digikavach

Google also announced updates to Google Pay. The app will alert users in case of fraud and block transactions when confirmed. How this will practically work is that it will vibrate the phone as soon as it detects you making a transaction to a fraudulent account, warning you to not proceed with that particular transaction. Also, the feature supports 9 Indian languages alongside English. This comes as part of Google’s ‘Digikavach’ initiative.

Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics & IT, Ashwini Vaishnaw,  announced Google’s Digital Pragati mission. This includes all microfinance schemes such as easier loan grants and credit on the Google Pay app.

Google Pay has partnered with some banks and finance firms to offer loans as small as Rs 15,000. Loans can be repaid from as low as Rs 111.

YouTube News page

Google is making it easier for you to keep track of news. With the new update to YouTube, users can tap on a video and gather all the news about that topic, including a news story, explainer videos, shorts, and related stories.

“This launch reinforces YouTube’s long-standing commitment to connecting viewers with timely and substantive news content, while also helping news organizations engage with their audience through multi-format content in unique ways,” stated Google.

Made in India Google Pixel 8

Lastly, Google revealed that it’s partnering with international and domestic manufacturers to produce Pixel smartphones locally. As part of this, it will manufacture the Google Pixel 8 in India and will ship the locally manufactured phone starting in 2024.