Here’s how I used Google Gemini as a smarter search engine

You don’t have to be a tech nerd to use new technology

Gemini is part brainiac, part personal assistant that helps you search more efficiently. If you feel like some tech publications try to make you feel like you aren’t smart enough, don’t worry, Google Gemini is for everyone

I always want to be productive and organized. I’m creative, an idea person. My ideas sprawl over a scribbled notebook I can barely decipher from one day to the next. Once, I tried Google's Jamboard to get my idea-jam on, but I never could find a way to make it useful. (It's a Good thing since Google Jamboard goes away in October.)

When I look for ways to incorporate new technologies into my everyday routine, I need them to be practical.

When you find a tool that you can use every day in your digital life, it helps you be more productive and, okay, I am just going to say it, happier. It's working the way it should; you don't need to get all hot and bothered about how technical the backend is; what do you care? You just want it to work and add value.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of those new technologies I wanted to try in my personal life to help save time while researching articles, planning a vacation, or learning a new hobby or skill.?But everyone was losing their minds over ChatGPT and we saw experiment after experiment ooze out into the world. Images with too many teeth, a flying car in the ocean, people with too many hands and overly thin faces. That isn't useful for me.

I believe that AI can help us do more by automating time-consuming or repetitive tasks. AI can do our digital heavy lifting. So, I decided to apply AI in the form of Google Gemini to something most of us have gotten accustomed to doing instinctively in our digital lives—search.?

Smarter search

Saves time with fewer searches

After using Google Gemini for two weeks, I concluded it is a smarter search engine. It functions as a digital butler—or a personal AI that can fit into your digital routine.?And yes, we need that. Our digital lives are so busy, why not get some help finding information easily? Who could argue with that?

When you use traditional search, it returns bits and pieces of information related to your search or tangentially related to your search. It includes sponsored content and just regular content that sometimes doesn’t match your search.

With Gemini, your chat prompt, such as—show me a list of videos on how to forage for mushrooms—returns a list of only the related videos. I have not found that in a traditional search. Gemini enables you to search and navigate endless amounts of information in a more relatable way.?

Streamlining information

I wanted to know how to forage edible mushrooms. Yes, a Google search also works, but it took me down a rabbit hole of endless links and academic papers I can’t use. My search for mushrooms also returned content highlighted with important safety information about consuming mushrooms.

Yes, you can test Gemini to dream up any idea that comes to mind, but if you want to start using AI to save time on searching for everyday things you do in your life—find restaurants, work more efficiently, make plans, etc.—it’s an effective way to find those answers without multiple searches. It can make a list, write content, curate how-to tutorials, videos, and images and gather resources. If you dream it up, it can do it.?

But, the AI also reminds you in plain language under the prompt on the landing page that some information, including people, may not be accurate, so double-check everything. I liked the simplicity of the Google Gemini. Simple things can be amazing.

No ads or sponsored content

More relevant results without more searching

Search, as we have come to know and accept, is packed with sponsored content. You can’t do a traditional search and not have the top three results be ads or results that make you click even farther down the rabbit hole.

Gemini doesn’t do that—yet. On Chrome , when I asked Gemini to find a James Beard Award-winning restaurant in Portland, Maine, it returned two results—no sponsored content or ads.?

Search+

Once you get all those results from a traditional search—now what? Maybe you dump all those links into an email or open a Google Doc to add them to your research. That process does not involve doing the heavy lifting. Traditional search falls short. It is not actionable—it requires more work.

Gemini searches but then puts that information into a usable format—an email, a summary, a list. For example, if you start a chat in Gemini — write a draft of an out-of-office message when I am on vacation in Maine July 1-12 — it creates the suggested email. It has a draft feature that provides multiple options by tone —persuasive, friendly, direct, etc.—of that content. It also lets you highlight parts of that text to customize and add your own words.

Make search work for you

Ultimately, using any new technology is up to the user. There is no right or wrong way to incorporate new technology into your life. And you shouldn't let anyone or any tech media outlet try and make you feel you aren't smart enough to try new technology. Decide how you want to be productive and use the tool that works for you. (no one puts baby in a corner, remember?)

Google Gemini is another technology that has been delivered to us free of charge, so you can use it to express who you are, help you work smarter, or just daydream about dating Jason Momoa.