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Google Brings Circle to Search-Like Feature to the iPhone in Its Google and Chrome Apps

The AI-powered feature, which lets you quickly search for whatever's on your screen, is rolling out to iOS users this week.

Headshot of Nelson Aguilar
Headshot of Nelson Aguilar
Nelson Aguilar
With more than a decade of experience, Nelson covers Apple and Google and writes about iPhone and Android features, privacy and security settings, and more.
Nelson Aguilar
2 min read
Google Lens - Circle to Search feature on Chrome and Google

Although it's not exactly Circle to Search, you now have a similar feature on iOS to get more information about whatever is on your screen.

 Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Google's Circle to Search feature on Android, which lets you select and search what's on your screen by drawing, highlighting or tapping on an object, is available as Google Lens for iPhone users. 

Whereas Circle to Search works system-wide on Android, Google Lens lets you do pretty much the same thing as Circle to Search, but it works exclusively in the Chrome and Google apps.

Tech Tips

If you're in Chrome or Google and you want to learn more about an object you see, like a building or a pair of shoes, you can quickly use a gesture to search for whatever is on your screen and get more information about it via web search or AI overviews. Previously, if you wanted to search for what's on your screen on iOS, you only had the option to take a screenshot and upload it to Google, but obviously this new approach is much quicker and easier.

Check out: There's a Way to Get Google's Circle to Search AI Feature on Your iPhone

The Google Lens feature is arriving this week to the Google app on iOS. If you want to test out the feature on your iPhone, here's what you need to know.

How to use Google Lens in Google and Chrome on iOS

If you're in the Google app and see an an object that you want to learn more about, tap the three-dot menu and then select "Search Screen with Google Lens" or "Search this Screen," respectively. The screen will sparkle all over, with the words Google Lens at the top of the screen.

You can now use whatever gesture you're most comfortable with: Draw around the object, tap on an object or highlight any text. Once you do, a web search window appears at the bottom, giving you more information about what you've just searched for, as well as any visual matches.

Google Lens search

You can add more context to your search by typing into the search bar.

 Gogole

If you want to add more context to your search to better refine it, type into the search bar that says "Add to search." For example, if you use Circle to Search to highlight a pizza to find recipes for it online, you can add something like "vegetarian recipe" to refine your search.

In addition to this feature, Google will soon let iPhone users use the camera icon in Google Search to snap a photo and get an AI Overview so that you can quickly get more information about whatever you're looking at, whether it's a car, building or statue. The expansion of AI Overviews to Lens results is also launching this week on the Google app for Android and iOS and is coming soon to Chrome mobile and desktop.