One of the most useful AI features of the flagship Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy phones is Circle to Search.
As feature names go, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Simply long-press the home button, then draw a circle around what you want to look up on Google. The built-in AI will do the rest, helping you identify objects (landmarks, species of plant, etc.) or find something similar to buy (“I wonder where he bought those shoes”).
It's constantly evolving, with the Samsung Galaxy S25 series recently introducing Advanced AI Overviews and One Tap Actions, and now an app teardown from Android Authority reveals three new ways that Circle to Search could soon deal with queries based on highlighted text.
The v16.11.36 beta version of the Google app apparently enables three new chips on the AI overview screen when using Circle to Search on text: Summarize, Explain or Extract.
The site says that this could possibly come to Google Lens too, but that currently can’t be confirmed. You can see it in action in Circle to Search in the site’s video below, however.
In the clip, the user highlights a headline that brings up a brief generative AI overview, essentially paraphrasing it. Underneath, there are three options to “ask about this image”.
Tapping “Summarize text from image” brings up a series of bullet points with content from external sources — some of it only tangentially related to the headline itself. “Explain text from image”, meanwhile, is a direct interpretation of the meaning, using only the visible text as a guide.
Finally, “Extract text from image” seems to bring out all text visible in the image and — oddly — some not. While some bits are clearly taken from the image, such as the headline and author, it’s not clear where it’s getting the site’s affiliate link disclaimer and other phone screen content from, suggesting it’s not only examining the text of the image, but tracking down the source and unnessesarily digging out more.
Nonetheless, it all sounds rather useful, as long as you treat any results with the same skepticism that all generative AI content should prompt. Hallucinations remain a big thing in AI, and you shouldn’t blindly believe everything Gemini tells you.
Android Authority says these prompts are server-side flags, so there’s a chance you can try these out for yourself if you sideload the beta. If not, it’ll likely be coming to all users sooner rather than later.
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