Candice Bryant, Google Technology Analyst

AI tools are playing a critical role in back-to-school preparations. Google is leading the way with AI tools that can help with tasks like making to-do lists, researching, and finding the best deals. Google search trends show a spike in searches for school supply lists and backpacks. Google offers tools like Google Search and Google Lens for homework help and immediate feedback. Google Classroom is also available for parents, students, and teachers to track progress and aid in learning. AI tools can help students get prepared and organized for the school year. Shopping tools like Google Lens can help find specific items online. To access these AI tools, you can go to bard.google.com or use Google Search. Well, one thing that you probably already know is just the more and more critical role that AI is playing in so many different aspects of our life. You know, the school year is just about upon us. Teachers, parents, students, everybody, of course, is getting ready. And, of course, AI tools are here to help every step of the way. Google is leading the way, no surprise on that. And whether it's making your to-do list or researching the latest ways to support students or, hey, why not find the best deals on clothes and supplies, Google and their AI tools can help you have a seamless back-to-school experience. My guest who's joining me this morning here at the RNJ Morning Program to talk more about this is Candice Bryant, who is a Google technology analyst who is joining me. Candice, good morning. It's Bert Barron, WRNJ Radio. How are you doing today? Good morning, Bert. Thank you so much for having me. It's my honor. And I could actually be speaking to an AI person right now, but I have every reason to believe that you're a real individual. Is that correct? I'm a real individual. There we go. And I actually have a rising fourth grader, so we're in full-on back-to-school mode. Wow. How exciting. Yeah, back-to-school time even hitting home for you. But what are some of the trends? What are some of the back-to-school trends and some of the top searches that we're seeing as we get ready to head back to the classroom? When we look at the Google search trends, as you might imagine, we're seeing a lot of emphasis on shopping. Searches for school supply lists have spiked 450% in the U.S. over the past month. We're especially seeing people search for school supply lists for students entering high school or going away for college. As they're embarking on this next life stage, they and their parents are trying to figure out what they'll need. We're also seeing a lot of search interest in backpacks for school, which is up 250%. Specifically, people are looking for clear backpacks and mesh backpacks. Yeah, you're starting to see those become the trend that we're seeing in schools across the country. So that's cool that you're able to help out with that. How about with helping out the students themselves? Maybe ways to keep kids a little bit better organized or help them get through the day-to-day rigors of going to school. What are some tools that students could find helpful with the AI offerings that you have? So one of the other interesting trends that we've actually seen is students are searching for questions like, is, you know, X, Y, or Z subjects hard? So is physics hard? Or is environmental science hard? I know that when I was in school, it would have been a resounding yes. But kids today have so many more tools available to them online to help them with these subjects. So just a few to highlight. First, Google Search is great for homework help. Students or parents who've forgotten how to do fractions, no judgment, can type a word problem into the search bar. And Google Search will show you step-by-step explanations for how to solve it. We also have some really great tools like Google Lens, which students can use to scan problems as well. If you're not familiar with Google Lens, it allows you to search what you see. And there's even a homework help filter. So that's almost like a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, almost like a homework helper, where if somebody is just having some problems doing some work, you could turn to these AI tools and get some on-demand assistance and some on-demand help, really, at any given moment. That's another cool tool to have. Exactly. And what I've seen with my own daughter is that giving children immediate feedback is so critical, especially in subjects like math, where the concepts build on one another. And so you really want to be able to check your work, and if your work is incorrect, be able to get steps on how to do it correctly. And that's what these tools can help with. There's also a lot of really great tools for parents and educators, like our Google Classroom, which is, you're all in one place with teaching and learning. Through Google Classroom, students no longer have to worry about misplaced papers, parents can track their children's progress, and teachers can use the Practice Set feature to aid in their students' learning. Very excellent stuff. My guest is with me this morning, Google Technology Analyst, Candice Bryant. We're getting ready for back to school. She has her own child who's also getting ready to head back to the classroom. And I like the idea, too, Candice, about just being able to ask in advance about the level of difficulty of a particular course. Because if you ask, you know, other students and other classmates, you know, someone will tell you, oh, yeah, it's difficult, avoid that. Someone will say, well, I thought it was easy, so maybe you should check it out. At least with AI, you'll get the real information and the real answers, and you can make that determination for yourself. The parents and teachers and students can work together and come to a conclusion collectively, which I think is great. Right. And these tools can help you get prepared and organized. So if there is something that perhaps you need a little bit of extra help with, there are so many tools, as I said, through Google Classroom, that can really help you get off to a great start using Practice Sets and quizzes to make sure that you really understand and get prepared for those subjects ahead. I wonder if we're going to see a spike in the next week or so, Candice, of people asking, can I dress up as Ken or Barbie on the first day of school? I wonder if you're allowed to ask that of AI. I'm not sure. Well, you know, I think that it's really interesting because right now, there's also a lot of emphasis on shopping, obviously, for back to school. So we're really seeing people looking for clothing and shoes and things of that nature. I know for my own daughter, her school requires white sneakers, so I'm always in Google Search searching for where can I find shoes that have no color on them? And there's some really great shopping tools that can help with that as well. One that I already mentioned that can be used for homework help, like Google Lens. You can take a picture if you see one of your friends have an item that you want, maybe that Ken t-shirt, you can take a picture of that, and now you can try to find that t-shirt online. Excellent stuff. Candice Bryant, Google Technology Analyst. If I want to access all these great AI tools, I open up Google and then I search Google AI. Is that all I have to do? Or just AI? How do I get to this quickly? There are several great tools. So our most common AI tool is bard.google.com. That's for 18 and up. You can go to Bard and ask any question. You can also go to Google Search and search for any of these items. And if you're looking for the trends, you can go to google.com slash trends. All right. Let's get back to school. Candice Bryant, Google Technology Analyst. Thank you for the time today. And best of luck to your daughter going back to school very shortly. So thank you again for the time this morning. Thanks so much, Bert.