Google improves Collections in Search, adds suggestions and collaboration capabilities

Google is making improvements to the Collections feature in Search that helps users easily find their historical searches and look for additional content based on those searches. The improvements are being brought to the Google app on Android and to Google.com on the web. The company says that these improvements make it easier to “jump back into your task without digging through your search history”.

The first of the improvements is that of suggestions for Collections. The firm says that it uses AI to group similar pages based on users’ searches, such as cooking, shopping or hobbies, and suggests creating a collection based on them. These suggestions are presented in the Collections tab, which can be accessed through the ellipsis menu in the Android app, or through the left navigation bar on the web. These suggestions can also be turned off by the user through the settings.

Adding to the suggestions is the ‘Find more’ feature. Once you tap on your suggested collection, the app can intelligently suggest the next steps or more relevant information in the ‘Find more’ area. This functionality can provide users with related searches, images, or even websites that will help with decision making or provide more context into the topics that the user is looking for. Users can then save these suggestions to their collections.

These collections can also be shared with more users for collaborating on events such as a get-together or a recipe, where multiple people can use the information on various aspects of the event and work together for planning and execution. Users have the option to let others view the collection or even make changes to it. The collections can also be made private afterward.

The Mountain View giant has been improving the functionality and reach of Search with time, making it a powerful tool, be it for news, shopping, and package tracking or just plain information. The ability to find related content and sharing of Collections has begun rolling out globally. However, the suggested collections feature will begin appearing to users using English U.S. starting today. The firm says that it looks to expand this feature to more languages and regions over time.