At its annual Google for India event held on Thursday in Delhi, Google introduced a range of new features aimed at enhancing its apps and services. Among the highlights were updates to Google Pay, which now offers support for personal and gold loans, as well as new health-related functionalities developed in collaboration with the healthcare sector. The tech giant also presented enhanced features designed to detect and protect users from scams.
Improvements to the search experience were also unveiled, allowing customers to directly reach businesses via WhatsApp. This builds on the previous feature where users could tap on phone numbers listed in search results to make calls. Additionally, Google Maps has undergone updates, now providing real-time alerts concerning weather-related events like flooding and fog.
Google Pay, the company’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) app, is now equipped to facilitate personal and gold loans. Partnerships with Aditya Birla Capital Finance and Muthoot Finance have been established to offer these services, enabling users to borrow personal loans of up to ₹5 lakh and gold loans of up to ₹50 lakh.
Google’s AI tools have enabled free cancer and tuberculosis screenings in India.
Photo Credit: Google
Under its DigiKavach initiative, Google reported saving users from scams amounting to ₹13,000 crore and displaying more than 41 million warnings in 2023. The company also stated that it detected and removed over 170 million fraudulent reviews on Google Maps. Furthermore, Android users in India will soon benefit from enhanced fraud protection features that restrict the sideloading of malicious apps that seek access to sensitive permissions.
In terms of healthcare advancements, Google highlighted new features worked on with partners like Apollo Hospitals, which utilize the company’s deep learning models to enhance diagnostic accuracy. Notably, Google’s AI tools are facilitating free tuberculosis and cancer screenings across various regions.
Additionally, support for Gemini Live has been announced, rolling out in nine languages including Hindi, to allow users to interact with the AI assistant in real-time. AI overviews, which were previously accessible in Hindi and English, will soon be expanded to include Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu.
