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As promised, Google is once again trying out what looks to be a useful and aspirational new feature that heavily utilizes AI. This time around, the new feature is called ‘Daily Listen’ and it has the potential to be a massively-used feature that I think I could see myself taking advantage of daily.
Rolling out to Android and iOS users in the US, this experimental Labs feature is basically like having a personal podcast for your day-to-day news feed. ‘Daily Listen’ peeks into your Search and Discover feed history, figures out what news articles you’d be most interested in, and then serves up a NotebookLM podcast-style audio overview of those stories in about five minutes. It sounds wild and useful, and here’s how it works:
- Personalized just for you: Daily Listen dives deep into your search data and Discover feed interactions to handpick the news that matters most to you.
- Short and sweet: You’ll get a concise audio rundown of the day’s most relevant news, all in a bite-sized five-minute package.
- Easy to control: The feature comes with a handy audio player, complete with a text transcript and all the usual controls (play, pause, mute, rewind, skip).
- Feedback matters: Daily Listen has a “Related stories” tab where you can give a thumbs up or thumbs down to stories and explore new topics. This helps Google fine-tune the algorithm and serve up even better content over time.
If you’re lucky enough to be part of the Search Labs experiment, you’ll find Daily Listen nestled in the personalized widget carousel right under the Search bar in your Google app. You can click the Labs button at the top of the Google app to see if it is available to you. When I started this post, it was a no-go for me. As I’m preparing to publish, however, it has now shown up in my Google app in the Labs section!
For now, there’s no official word on whether this will become a permanent fixture. But if you recall, AI Search Overviews started as a Search Labs experiment too, and now they’re here to stay. So, there’s a definite chance ‘Daily Listen’ could become a regular part of our collective Google experience. Until it does, I know I’ll be on the lookout for it in Google Search Labs for sure!
VIA: 9to5 Google
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