Google revamps 'Collections' with AI, collaborative features

Google is taking its little known bookmarking feature — Collections— from a back seat feature to one that sits at the forefront of its search experience. Previously relegated to the "more" menu of the Google app, the firm is now pushing it front and center with a new Collections tab that sits front and center on the homepage of the app.

But that's not all that's going on, Google is making Collections much more useful for everyone. It's applying two of what you could say are its core strengths - collaboration and suggestion - to supercharge the feature, and it kind of works.

Source: Google

Suggestions are something that Google does well. Whether with search terms, autocorrect or even YouTube, the firm has made a name for itself, for better or worse. With suggested Collections, Google's AI will look at terms you've been searching for recently and automatically create a new Collection based around similarly themed searches. Let's say you search "barbell", "gym", and "fitness center" and look at pages linked to those terms.

Google will use machine learning to generate a new "Fitness" collection for you. You'll be able to save them and return to them later via the Collections tab.

Google has also added collaborative Collections. You'll now be able to share a link to a collection with your friends and family. They'll be able to view it and make changes depending on the permissions you give them. Say you're planning a trip or a vacation, you could create a collection around hotels and tourist attractions, share that, and get feedback with ease.

Google's suggested Collections will start out today as a U.S. only feature, but the firm will roll it out to all users later. Collaborative Collections are rolling out to all now.