Google has quietly introduced a new AI Search experiment called Learn About, which summarizes content and offers navigational menus to explore related subtopics. This new way of exploring content uses drill-down navigational menus called Interactive Lists and if the user scrolls down far enough they will eventually find links to human created content.
This new way of searching encourages exploration with an interface that continually presents additional summaries and links to human-created content. The experience resembles a children’s “choose your story” book, where the narrative shifts based on the reader’s decisions.
Google’s Learning Initiative
The Learn About AI Search is offered as part of Google Labs. It’s also a part of Google’s Learning Initiative. The Learning Initiative page offers links to Google Labs projects that are related to learning.
The Learning Initiative contains links to various projects:
Learn About
Shiffbot
Illuminate
NotebookLM
Pilot Program (early access to AI products for 12 and higher education)
Experiments for Learning (AI learning tools that students can use to create songs or travel virtually to Mars)
The Google Learning Initiative page describes Learn About:
“Learn About
Grasp new topics and deepen understanding with this adaptable, conversational, AI-powered learning companion.”
Interactive List User Interface
Learn About’s Interactive List exploration menus are illustrated with images, which is appealing because humans are visually oriented. That makes it faster to comprehend the written content because the image reinforces the text.
The images in the interactive menu appear to be licensed from stock image providers like Shutterstock, Adobe, and Alamy. None of the images appear to be sourced from creator websites.
Screenshot Of Interactive List Navigational Menu
Questions trigger a summary and a drill down navigational menu that’s called an Interactive List. These search results lead to related topics and progressively granular summaries, more Interactive Lists.
Beneath the Interactive Lists is a section called “Explore related content” that offers links to actual human created content like YouTube videos and website content.
Beneath the links to creator content is a group of buttons labeled with options to Simplify, Go deeper, or Get images. Beneath those three choices are speech balloons with additional search queries on related topics.
Screenshot Of Explore Related Content Section
There is also a left-hand navigational menu with an invitation to explore using Interactive List menu.