Google promises better search results for recipes, jobs and shopping

Google is making its activity cards feature — which helps you pick up where you left off in Search on mobile — more useful. Let’s say you’re looking for iPad accessories. The shopping card will display products that you’ve been researching, and even some that you haven’t explicitly searched for. If they were featured in a review or a guide, Google might surface them in the card. That could help you to compare all of your options and reach a decision.

The jobs card could make it easier for you to keep on top of new openings in your field. It’ll display relevant job listings that have popped up since you last searched, so you don’t necessarily have to trawl through the same ones over and over.

Google has also made improvements to the recipes card. “To make meal planning easier, we’re updating the recipes activity card to show you even more relevant recipes related to your query,” Search product manager InHan Kang wrote in a blog post. “So now when you search for chicken recipes, we’ll surface the related recipes you’ve recently visited and provide a thumbnail preview to make it easy to select the right one.”

These updates are rolling out today. If you’re not interested in seeing activity cards, you can turn off private results in your Search settings. You can also remove individual items that pop up on the recipe and product cards, and delete your job searches from the My Activity.

Elsewhere, you now have the option of sending audio messages via Google Assistant on Android phones solely using your voice. All you have to do is say, “Hey Google, send an audio message,” along with the name of the recipient and what you want to tell them. The feature is live in English-speaking countries, and in Brazil in Portuguese.