Google Turns 25: Here’s A Brief Look At Its History And Growth – News18

Technology giant Google has turned 25 years old as a company today, on September 27th. On the occasion of this special event, Google has revealed a new doodle that shows the history of Google logos over the years and has added a new confetti easter egg that plays every time you search for anything birthday-related.

“Twenty-five years ago, we launched Google Search to help you find answers to questions big and small. Since then, billions of people have turned to our products to do just that—to satisfy their curiosity,” Google said.

Highlights Over The Last 25 Years

Over the course of 25 years, Google has transitioned as a company and has launched a plethora of new products and additions to search. For instance, the company brought Google Images in 2001, along with the ability to find images. Google also introduced the ‘Did You Mean’ feature in 2001, which prompted users to correct their spellings.

Later in 2006, Google introduced the Google Translate feature, making it easy for people to quickly translate one language to another. Initially, the feature was limited to translation between Arabic and English, but now Google Translate works with over 100 languages.

Next, in 2008, Google launched its mobile app on iPhone, adding features like autocomplete and ‘my location.’ Another major launch in 2008 was Google Voice, which enabled users to search by their voice. Today, Google notes, “search by voice is particularly popular in India, where the percentage of Indians doing daily voice queries is nearly twice the global average.”

In 2017, Google introduced Google Lens, showcasing its machine learning prowess and its ability to recognize objects and subsequently convert them into search queries. And now, “Lens sees more than 12 billion visual searches per month,” Google said.

Google also introduced quality-of-life features like Hum to Search, which enables users to hum a song that has been stuck in their head as an earworm. In 2020, Google used its machine learning expertise to enable this feature.

And now, in 2023, Google has finally shifted its focus to generative AI-powered experiences with Google Bard and its LLMs like PaLM 2 and the upcoming Gemini.