Google launches new features for the upcoming U.S. elections, adds AI restrictions

One of the world’s most important political events, the U.S. elections, takes place in November. The presidential campaigns of the two contenders are already in full swing, so the social networks are full of … politics.

Google is among the first companies to announce a range of new features that are meant to offer users in the United States with “high-quality and reliable information from non-partisan organizations.”

Thanks to the new changes, people will have an easier time finding information on candidates, voting processes and voting locations. For instance, Google is now rolling out a feature on Search that helps people across the US find the authoritative information on hot they can register to vote.

Also, Google announced that a slew of features will be coming in the next weeks for YouTube viewers in the US, which will connect them with helpful election information. Once these features go live, when someone searches for a federal election candidate, an info panel will appear above the search results, highlighting candidate details, including their political party, a link to the candidate’s official channel, and one to a Google Search.

In addition to that, Google will show reminders on where and hot to vote on the YouTube homepage in the final weeks of the campaign.

But wait, there’s more! A new badge for apps in the Google Play Store is now displayed for those apps that belong to official government agencies.

Last but not least, Google announced that it has decided to apply election-related restrictions to many Gen AI products, including Search AI Overviews, YouTube AI-generated summaries for Live Chat, Gems, and image generation in Gemini.

Google is also restricting responses for election-related queries on the Gemini apps and web experience, something that the search giant warned back in December.