Changes are coming to the Google Search UI

The Google Search app user interface is about to get a new look. According to Android Police, Google is testing some changes to the app including a thicker search bar. Icons for voice search and Google Lens will remain on the bar. Also new, besides the girth of the search bar, is a carousel directly underneath with shortcut suggestions such as "Search recent Screenshots from your library," get help for your homework using your camera and Google Lens, how to identify songs, and more.

These suggestions can tell you about things that Google Search can do that perhaps you didn't know about. They also can start the process and get the ball rolling with a single tap on the screen.

Also new is a bell icon next to your profile picture in the upper right of the screen. Tap on it to see notifications related to all of the topics you subscribed to on Google. Other improvements are coming to the app including the ability to show you search results even before you've finished typing. Keep in mind that this is not the same thing as showing you suggestions on what to search for as you type as that is currently available on the Google Search app.

The difference is that with the new feature, Google Search will try to figure out what you are looking for even before you finish typing it into the search bar and will show you results before you are done. If Google has the correct topic, you will shave valuable seconds off of your session with Google Search. If Google is wrong, the time it takes you to look down on the screen to check and type your query out completely will add a few seconds to your Google Search session. So for this to be useful, Google has to nail the algorithm.

Right now it's uncertain whether Google is disseminating the aforementioned changes to the Search UI to everyone or if it is part of an A/B test (Google is known to run these often).