Google Search adds incredibly helpful tool that makes complex concepts easy to understand

Phone Arena

09-05-2025

You don't have to be scared of AI because AI can be your friend. This week, Google added a new feature to search called Simplify. What this feature does is use AI magic to make something complicated easier to understand. Unlike other AI features for search such as AI Overviews and AI Mode which often hallucinate, Simplify doesn't require the AI model to respond in a way that could lead to the dissemination of incorrect statements. Consider Simplify to be a way to translate things that you find hard to understand into easier to grasp concepts. Simplify is available on the iOS version of the Google app. To use Simplify, highlight the text you want simplified from inside a website being viewed from the Google app. Once you've highlighted the passage you want explained, look for the Simplify icon, which consists of two arrows that form a circle around a capital letter "A" with the Gemini icon in the upper left of the circle.
You'll usually find the Simplfy icon at the bottom of the screen. Tap on it and the highlighted text will be, well, simply explained. This is actually a very useful tool for those who need help understanding a particular concept. If you do find that you now understand something that you thought you'd never would, you can thank Gemini, since Google is using its multimodal AI model for the feature.
Using Simplify to understand Soccer's offsides rule. | Image credit-PhoneArena
You might wonder what the difference is between Simplify and Summarize. Google says that the former uses Gemini "to make complicated text more digestible," without losing details. A summary will tell you the main points of a story, but it might not contain all of the information from the story. Research testing conducted by Google found that those using Simplify found it "significantly more helpful than the original complex text." Additionally, Simplify users say that they retained information better when using the feature.
As an example, we took one of the most complicated rules in sports and put it through Simplify. Of course, we are referring to soccer's "offsides" rule. Read the rule after it was put through Simplify, and perhaps you'll have a better understanding of how it works. If you're impressed with the feature, you can always use Simplify to get a better grasp of baseball's infield fly rule.