Google Lens can turn you into a mobile-tech magician, but it's up to you to learn its tricks.
Psst: Come close. Your Android phone has a little-known superpower — a futuristic system for bridging the physical world around you and the digital universe on your device. It’s one of Google’s best-kept secrets. And it can save you tons of time and effort.
Oh — and no, it isn’t Gemini.
It’s a little somethin’ called Google Lens, and it’s been lurking around on Android and quietly getting more and more capable for years — since long before “AI” became part of our popular vernacular. Google doesn’t make a big deal about it, weirdly enough, and you really have to go out of your way to even realize it exists. But once you uncover it, you’ll feel like you have a magic wand in your pocket.
At its core, Google Lens is best described as a search engine for the real world. It uses (yes…) artificial intelligence to identify text and objects both within images and in a live view from your phone’s camera, and it then lets you learn about and interact with those elements in all sorts of interesting ways.