Bored With AI? These 7 Google Labs Experiments Might Change Your Mind
Table of ContentsCompare Specs: Our Picks Side by Side1. CC for Daily Briefings2. Flow for Quick Video Creation3. Food Mood for New Recipes4. Google App for Windows for Quick Searches5. Learn About for AI Learning6. Little Language Lessons for Translating7. NotebookLM for Note-Taking
Curious about AI, but not sure where to start? Google offers a host of AI experiments through its Google Labs page—around 45 at last count. The list includes video generators, language lessons, a career dreamer, Notebook LM, AI overviews in search, an Ask Photos feature, a music generator, and much more. To get started, all you need is a Google account.Most of the lab experiments are free, though some require a Google AI Pro or AI Ultra subscription or force you to join a waitlist. To access them, head to the Google Labs web page and make sure you’re signed in. The main page shows you any new labs, while the Experiments page displays a list of current experiments. Click the Try It Now button to dive right in, or Learn More for experiments that require a waitlist or some preliminary setup.With so many experiments available for testing, how do you know which ones are worth trying? Here are the ones I like best, and how I use them.1. CC for Daily BriefingsAn AI-powered tool called CC (as in Carbon Copy) aims to help you plan and organize your day by accessing your Gmail and Google Calendar. It then suggests actions and reminders based on your emails and appointments, and sends you a personalized briefing each morning. You'll need to join a waitlist, which you can do at the CC page.I’ve been using CC for a couple of weeks and find it helpful. The tool is valuable to me because it doesn’t just regurgitate items from my inbox and calendar. Rather, it gives them context and offers reminders and suggestions on how I might handle each task. I look forward to reading the email each morning as a helpful way to start my day.(Credit: PCMag / Google)2. Flow for Quick Video CreationA whole host of AI video generators are now available as websites and mobile apps. If you're looking for an alternative to Sora now that OpenAI shut it down, I like Google’s Flow. It lets you generate videos using text prompts or uploaded images. By describing the scene, camera movements, angles, sound effects, background noise, and even speech, you can create a brief video with sound, music, and movement. The latest version even taps into Google’s famed Nano Banana Pro for greater control over your videos.To get started, open the Flow page and click Create with Flow. Set up a new project and decide how you want to generate your video, e.g., text vs image. You can also choose a specific preset such as cinematic or film noir, then add your description or image and see what Flow cooks up. As one example, I asked Flow to create a video of two knights battling a fire-breathing dragon. I told it to give dialog to both. The dragon says: “Is that the best you’ve got” while the knight says: “I have just begun to fight.” In return, Flow generated two videos with different elements, both of them cinematic and atmospheric.(Credit: PCMag / Google)3. Food Mood for New RecipesMy wife and I both love trying different foods from around the world. Sometimes it's nice to bring the cuisines back with us, but most cookbooks we consult seem to deliver the same old dishes. Google's Food Moon tool lets us spice things up by creating dishes using cuisines from more than one culture. To take a bite out of this one, head to the Food Mood page and click Launch experiment. The Food Mood page then displays a sentence that lets you choose the food you want to prepare, the number of people, and the two countries. (Credit: PCMag / Google)Just click each red area to pick an item from a pop-up list. For example, I told Food Mood that I wanted a soup dish for four people mixing influences from Cuba and France. In response, I received a recipe for Cuban French Pumpkin Velouté, described as a marriage between the humble and hearty goodness of Cuban pumpkin and the refined elegance of French velouté. The recipe gave me the ingredients, provided the steps, and told me how long it would take to prepare. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m looking forward to putting on my chef’s apron and see what I can cook up.(Credit: PCMag / Google)4. Google App for Windows for Quick SearchesI use Google’s search engine a dozen or more times in a typical day. But when I’m working in Windows, that means I have to fire up my browser, head to the Google website, and type out my search query. Wouldn’t it be easier if I could just kick off a Google search directly from within Windows, without a browser? That’s what the Google app for Windows is for.To try it, head to the Google app for Windows page. Turn on the switch to activate the tool and click the Download app button to grab it. During the installation, you’re able to sign in with your Google account to let the app access your PC, local files, and web history. After installation, use the keyboard shortcut—Alt+Space by default—to trigger the app. You'll be able to run a search or ask it to identify any text or image that you highlight on the screen. For me, this tool is a tremendous time saver as I can easily run a search no matter what I’m doing in Windows.(Credit: PCMag / Google)5. Learn About for AI LearningI always like to learn about new subjects, and AI can offer different spins on learning, at least when it’s done right. One new Google experiment that fits the bill is appropriately named Learn About. With this tool, you’re able to type a URL or upload a PDF about a topic that interests you. In response, the AI generates a summary of the content, divided into subtopics and sections you can explore.To take this for a spin, go to the Learn About page. In the Ask Learn About field, enter the URL you want to investigate. You can also click the arrow at the end of the field and upload a PDF. It says you can also use an image, but this doesn't work yet. On my end, I uploaded a PDF of an old issue of Doctor Who Magazine. The summary was organized into different sections based on the content. Selecting a specific article took me to that section in the magazine with sample questions I could ask the AI. Here, I was also able to pose my own questions about the highlighted content. Best of all, I could listen to a guided audio tour of the magazine.(Credit: PCMag / Google)6. Little Language Lessons for TranslatingMy wife and I like to travel to other countries, but we always face a familiar challenge—how to learn the language well enough to communicate with the people who live there. We've tried taking language lessons, though we invariably bump into situations where we can't find the right words to express ourselves. A Google experiment called Little Language Lessons aims to help tackle that challenge.(Credit: PCMag / Google)To try this one, browse to the Little Language Lessons page and select one of the three features. Tiny Lesson tries to help you find the right vocabulary, phrases, and grammar to use for common situations. Slang Hang aims to teach you certain expressions, idioms, and slang through simulated conversations. And Word Cam uses your photos to help you learn how to speak about your surroundings.Choose the language to see the results. Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish are supported. I like using all three features, but I especially enjoy Word Cam as it identifies each object in a photo and then displays its name in both English and another language.(Credit: PCMag / Google)7. NotebookLM for Note-TakingCollecting and managing all the sources you need about a specific topic can be challenging. One tool that can help is Google's NotebookLM. Using AI, NotebookLM will collate the various sources of information you add, summarize the key details, answer questions about the research you've gathered, and even generate an AI podcast discussing the topic.To try this, go to the Notebook LM page, click Try NotebookLM, and select the option to create a new notebook. You can then add your sources as URLs, text, documents, PDFs, audio files, or images. When you’re done, the tool will display all the sources, so you can choose which ones to include or exclude. A brief summary provides the gist of the information, with sample questions to ask the AI and a prompt where you can submit your own questions. A side pane lets you view the research in a variety of formats, including a video overview, an audio overview, flashcards, a quiz, and an infographic.I’ve used NotebookLM a number of times, both to write about it and to conduct my own personal research. As one example, I added several PDFs of early issues of The Amazing Spider-Man comic book. NotebookLM generated a report called Spidey's Early Days. From there, I could view the research in different formats. But my favorite was listening to the podcast it created in which the two hosts discuss the origins and history of my favorite superhero.(Credit: PCMag / Google)
