During its Keynote, Google announced new features coming to its flagship search function—you know, that thing we all started using Google for. VP Amit Singhal spent some time discussing what Google’s search functionality will eventually morph into. Google’s strategy is summarized by three words: answer, converse, and anticipate. Singhal explained that many of the pieces of these upcoming changes can already be seen in products that Google has recently introduced—namely, Google Knowledge Graph and Google Now, with perhaps a splash of Google Glass, too. Last year, Google launched Knowledge Graph. The intent was to let Google move beyond simply locating keywords to begin understanding real-world entities (people, places, and things) and the relationship between them. Two example questions Singhal cited as questions Knowledge Graph was designed to answer are “What are the movies by J.J. Abrams?” and “What’s the release date of Star Trek: Into Darkness?”
