Google News Updated With New AI Features, Customised News Feed, Full Coverage, Newscasts, and More at I/O 2018

Google News is getting refreshed with new features, the company announced at the I/O 2018 developers conference. At the event, Google announced the all-new Google News leverages artificial intelligence to organise news. Google said that "more great journalism [is] being produced than ever before," and to make it easier to make sense of it all, it is bringing all its products into a unified News experience.

The new version of Google News uses a new set of AI techniques to take a constant flow of information as it comes on the Internet and then analyse it in real time to organise it into storylines, the company explains in a blog. Google News is able to understand the people, places, and things involved in stories as they evolve, and connect how they relate to each another. "At its core, this technology lets us synthesise information and put it together in a way that helps you make sense of what's happening, and what the impact or reaction has been," Google says.

For Google News app users, there is a new 'For You' section that will be available with a briefing of five stories that Google News organises for you. It will be a mix of the most important headlines, local news, and the latest developments on the topics you are interested in. Also, you can decide if you want to see more or less of a topic or publisher.

Google is also experimenting with a new visual format called Newscasts. Here, the latest developments in natural language understanding bring together a collection of articles, videos, and quotes on a single topic. Newscasts make it easy to browse through different sources to decide if you want to look further into a story.

Also, if you want to dig deeper into a story, a new 'Full Coverage' feature provides a complete picture of how that story is reported from a variety of sources. You will be able to see top headlines from various sources, videos, local news reports, FAQs, social commentary, and a timeline for stories that have played out over time. "Having a productive conversation or debate requires everyone to have access to the same information. That’s why content in Full Coverage is the same for everyone—it’s an impersonalised view of events from a range of trusted news sources," says Google.

Finally, Google Play Newsstand on mobile and desktop and Google News & Weather app on mobile are now formally folded into Google News. A dedicated tab for Newsstand will show you publishers to browse and follow, including over 1,000 magazine titles that are optimized for mobile format. If you want to subscribe to a publication, you no longer a need for credit card forms, or passwords. The all-new Google News rolling out starting today and will be available to everyone on Android, iOS and the Web in 127 countries by next week.

We discussed the most important things that Google did not mention during its I/O 2018 keynote, on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.