Google is using the power of Gemini in order to make it easier for users to look through the reviews of an app and find out if they want to install it or not. The new AI generated review summaries are now being rolled out to all users, according to a report by Android Authority.
Reportedly, the AI generated app review summaries were first spotted in Google Play Store version 48.5.23-31. However, we haven’t seen the AI summaries feature appearing on the latest version of Play Store and so haven’t many other users online, meaning that the update may be proceeding in a phased manner.
How do Play Store’s AI summaries work?
The AI generated app review summaries sumarize the most common pros and cons of an application on Play Store in an easy to read paragraph using the power of Gemini. The feature allows users to get the gist of user’s opinion about the app without reading multiple reviews.
The feature appears in the “Ratings and reviews” section of any app on the Play Store under a bolded heading titled, “Users are saying”, followed by the summary and the disclaimer at the bottom, “Summarized by Google AI”.
Under the main summary, there are interactive ‘chips’ that users can tap on in order to know more about a review on a specific aspect of an application like “user interface”, “file management” or “performance”.
While Google has maintained a lead over many other Big Tech companies, it isn’t actually to roll out such a feature to Play Store. Apple for intance had rolled out a similar review summaries feature for the App Store on iOS in April. Meanwhile, frequent Amazon app users would be familiar with the similar interface seen for product reviews on the e-commerce platform.
Google, however, would be hoping to avoid a pitfall like it faced when it first rolled out the AI overviews feature for Google Search where the AI started suggesting users to add glue to pizza to make the cheese stick or eating rocks daily add vitamins to the body. Credit where its due, though, Google’s AI overviews has been relatively stable since then barring a few misteps where it couldn’t tell the date. Google has also went on to make AI Mode a regular feature of the search experience, which brings a full fledged chatbot experience while searching the web, allowing for bigger queries in natural language.
