Google Lens is an

image recognition Computer vision tasks include methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing, and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g. in the form o ...

technology developed by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

, designed to bring up relevant information related to objects it identifies using visual analysis based on a

neural network A neural network is a group of interconnected units called neurons that send signals to one another. Neurons can be either biological cells or signal pathways. While individual neurons are simple, many of them together in a network can perfor ...

. First announced during

Google I/O Google I/O, or simply I/O, is an annual developer conference held by Google in Mountain View, California. The name "I/O" is taken from the number googol, with the "I" representing the first digit "1" in a googol and the "O" representing the s ...

2017, it was first provided as a standalone app, later being integrated into Google Camera but was reportedly removed in October 2022. It has also been integrated with the Google Photos and

Google Assistant Google Assistant is a virtual assistant software application developed by Google that is primarily available on home automation and mobile devices. Based on artificial intelligence, Google Assistant can engage in two-way conversations, unlike ...

app and with Bard (now Gemini) as of 2023.

Features

Lens

When pointing the phone's camera at an object, Google Lens will try to identify the object by reading

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, Machine-readable data, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly ref ...

, QR codes, labels and text, and show relevant search results, web pages, and information. For example, when pointing the camera at a

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

label containing a network name and password, it will automatically connect to the scanned Wi-Fi network. Lens can also use images to identify text and can find results from

Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google or Google.com) is a search engine operated by Google. It allows users to search for information on the World Wide Web, Web by entering keywords or phrases. Google Search uses algorithms to analyze an ...

or translate the text with

Google Translate Google Translate is a multilingualism, multilingual neural machine translation, neural machine translation service developed by Google to translation, translate text, documents and websites from one language into another. It offers a web applic ...

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR), also known as mixed reality (MR), is a technology that overlays real-time 3D computer graphics, 3D-rendered computer graphics onto a portion of the real world through a display, such as a handheld device or head-mounted ...

. Lens is also integrated with the Google Photos and

apps. The service originally launched as

Google Goggles Google Goggles was an image recognition mobile app developed by Google. It was used for searches based on pictures taken by handheld devices. For example, taking a picture of a famous landmark searches for information about it, or taking a pictu ...

, a previous app that functioned similarly but less capably. Lens uses more advanced

deep learning Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that focuses on utilizing multilayered neural networks to perform tasks such as classification, regression, and representation learning. The field takes inspiration from biological neuroscience a ...

routines that provide recognition capability, similarly to other apps like Bixby Vision (for

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

devices released after 2016) and Image Analysis Toolset (IAT). During

2019, Google announced these new features: *recognizing and recommending items on a menu *calculating tips and bill splits *showing how to prepare food from a

recipe A recipe is a set of instructions that describes how to prepare or make something, especially a dish (food), dish of prepared food. A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main r ...

*using

speech synthesis Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal langua ...

(text to speech)

Circle to Search

On January 17, 2024,

Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SEC; stylized as SΛMSUNG; ) is a South Korean multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation founded on 13 January 1969 and headquartered in Yeongtong District, Suwon, South Korea. It is curr ...

and

announced Circle to Search, a new feature that allows users to search the web by circling images that features Lens integration. The feature was originally just on the

Samsung Galaxy S24 The Samsung Galaxy S24 is a series of high-end Android (operating system), Android-based smartphones developed, manufactured, and marketed by Samsung Electronics as part of its flagship Samsung Galaxy S series, Galaxy S series. They collectively ...

and the Pixel 8, but expanded to other phones from those manufacturers, including

Pixel 9 The Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, and Pixel 9 Pro XL are a group of Android (operating system), Android smartphones designed, developed, and marketed by Google as part of the Google Pixel product line. They serve as the successor to the Pixel 8 and P ...

and Samsung Galaxy S25.

Availability

Google officially launched Google Lens on October 4, 2017, with app previews pre-installed into the Google Pixel 2, not yet widely available for other devices. In November 2017, the feature began rolling out into the Google Assistant for

Pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...

and Pixel 2 phones. A preview of Lens has also been implemented into the Google Photos app for Pixel phones. On March 5, 2018, Google officially released Google Lens to Google Photos on non-Pixel phones. Support for Lens in the

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

version of Google Photos was made on March 15, 2018. Beginning in May 2018, Google Lens was made available within Google Assistant on OnePlus devices as well as being integrated into camera apps of various Android phones. A standalone Google Lens app was made available on Google Play in June 2018. Device support is limited, although it is not clear which devices are not supported or why. It requires

Android Marshmallow Android Marshmallow ( codenamed Android M during development) is the sixth major version of the Android operating system developed by Google, being the successor to Android Lollipop. It was announced at Google I/O on May 28, 2015, and released ...

(6.0) or newer. On December 10, 2018, Google rolled out the Lens visual search feature to the Google app for iOS. In 2022, Google Lens gradually replaced the reverse image search functionality of

Google Images Google Images (previously Google Image Search) is a search engine owned by Gsuite that allows users to search the World Wide Web for images. It was introduced on July 12, 2001, due to a demand for pictures of the green Versace dress of Jennif ...

, first by replacing it in

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...

and later by making it officially available as a

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...

. A July 2023 update to Google's chatbot

Bard In Celtic cultures, a bard is an oral repository and professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's a ...

integrated Google Lens, allowing users to contextualize their prompts by uploading images and adding image retrieval functionality.

References

{{Google LLC

Lens A lens is a transmissive optical device that focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements'') ...

2017 software Augmented reality