New resources include artificial intelligence, social projects, SME empowerment and data privacy
Google held the sixth edition of Google for Brazil and announced new products, services and partnerships, in addition to highlighting data on the economic and social impact in the country.
During the event, the company revealed that 46% of Brazilians have already tested tools that contain artificial intelligence in the last 12 months. Furthermore, according to data from Google Trends, in the last 12 months the search for the term “How to use artificial intelligence” has grown by 900% and “How to make money with AI” by 340%.
“Our focus is to be at the forefront of developing AI in all its capabilities and building it for the benefit of society,” said James Manyika, senior VP of research, technology and society at Google.
Among the new features presented is Green Light, a Google Research initiative that combines AI and traffic trends from Google Maps, aims to optimize traffic lights in cities and help reduce carbon emissions at intersections.
The project is in operation in 14 cities around the world and, according to initial data, there is a potential to reduce vehicle stops by up to 30% and emissions at intersections by up to 10%.
Rio de Janeiro is the first city in Latin America to participate in the initiative and has already received recommendations that impact more than 4 million vehicles per month. The project is expanding to the city of Campinas, in São Paulo.
Investment in social projects
Google announced that it generated more than R$188 billion in the Brazilian economy in 2023, through the Search, Google Ads, Google AdSense, Google Play, Google Cloud and YouTube platforms.
“In 2023, Google’s platforms — including search, advertising, ad senses, Google Cloud, Google Pay and YouTube — generated more than R$188 billion for the Brazilian economy. This is not Google’s business , but rather a business that works because people join us to make it happen”, said Fabio Coelho, president of Google Brazil.
The analysis considers the financial and productive benefits that Google tools provide to Brazilian companies. This number includes the return on investment generated by advertisers when running advertising campaigns on Google platforms, the revenue shared by the company with publishers, developers and content creators and cost savings and revenue gains by Brazilian companies from the use of the cloud.
The company also announced that it has invested in more than 20 social projects, which benefit around 160,000 people from 143 cities in 19 states in Brazil. Google stated that, from 2024, the selection process for new projects will be recurring and any institution can register via the website.
During the event, Google announced the arrival of two courses in Portuguese in the Google career certificates training library: cybersecurity and AI fundamentals. The courses were created by Google and are hosted on the Coursera platform, totaling more than 800 hours of certified classes.
Empowering small and medium-sized businesses in Search and Google Maps
A series of new features and partnerships to optimize the search and Google Maps experience for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are coming to Google.
The first functionality announced allows restaurants and bars to scan menus directly from their company profile. Artificial intelligence will transform the menu photo into a complete digital menu, which will appear in the “menu” section in Search and Google Maps. The feature is already being implemented in Brazil, one of the first countries to receive the new function.
The company will also allow the integration of social media profiles directly into the company’s Google profile, displaying the latest posts in a panel below the business information.
Additionally, health and beauty professionals will be able to connect with potential customers more quickly. Google now makes the function of scheduling appointments at beauty salons, medical appointments and exams available through other platforms directly on the company’s profile.
Small and medium-sized businesses will also be able to choose their preferred messaging channel, whether via text messages or WhatsApp, and make it available in Search and Maps.
Google announced a partnership with Embratur that consists of creating lists with suggested places to visit in tourist cities. The function is now available for the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and appears next to city information when people search for it.
Removal of personal information
A new feature will help people control personal information, privacy and security. The “Privacy in results about you” tool was launched in Brazil and allows people to find and remove results available on Google Search that contain sensitive information, such as address, telephone number, email, among others. Requests to remove results can be made through the app and Google will notify you when there are matching results in Search.
Google also announced that Brazil will be one of the first countries to have the tool expanded for identification documents such as CPF, driver’s license and passport, later this year.
