Google “Circle to Search” is coming to the Pixel 8 and S24

Google follows “Now on Tap” and “What's on my screen?” in Assistant, and later the Search Screen with the new Circle to Search feature that debuted on the Pixel 8 series and Samsung Galaxy S24.

Circle to Search captures what's on your current screen, including videos, and lets you circle a specific part of it to focus your Google Lens search.

With three-button navigation, which remains the default on Samsung devices, you can launch Circle to Search by long-pressing the Home button, thus replacing Assistant activation.

If gesture navigation is active, the search circle is called up by pressing down on the navigation bar. This seems very strange given the small size of this touch target. To indicate that you are holding down, the bar shrinks down.

Next, a Google search bar appears (with sound and lens), while you get an accompanying blue/purple animation on your screen. At this point, you can circle an object (or hover over it) to focus the search.

Results appear in a sheet with the ability to append a text query as part of a multiple search. This “ability to search using text and images at the same time” has been updated to “more easily understand concepts, ideas, or topics through useful information gathered together across the web.”

Besides rotating and scribbling, you can tap or highlight to select, which is especially useful for transcribing words, optical character recognition (OCR), or translating them.

You can also scribble on the bag and tap on the shoes to search for them, all without leaving your place. When you're done, just swipe and you'll be right back where you started.

Circle to Search will launch starting January 31 on the Pixel 8, 8 Pro and Galaxy S24 series, which Google refers to as “premium Android smartphones,” “in all languages ​​and locations where they are available.”