Google Lets Search Talk: New “Audio Overviews” Bring Hands-Free

Google is rolling out an experimental “Audio Overviews” feature inside Search that reads AI-generated summaries of certain queries aloud.

Powered by the company’s latest Gemini models and housed in Google’s Labs program, the tool offers a podcast-style playback experience—with links for deeper reading—aimed at multitaskers, auditory learners and anyone who prefers a more accessible way to digest information.

Key Points

What it is: Audio Overviews are short, spoken summaries generated by Gemini and delivered through a built-in audio player with play/pause, volume and speed controls.
Where you’ll see it: The option appears in Search when Google’s system decides an audio overview could help with a specific query. To try it out, opt into the experiment in Labs.
How it works: Alongside the narration, the player surfaces the web links that informed the summary, letting users click through for more detail.
User feedback: Listeners can rate each overview with a thumbs up or thumbs down, or give feedback on the overall experiment via Labs.
Related rollouts: Audio Overviews first landed in NotebookLM (for turning your own documents into AI-hosted podcasts). Audio Overviews in Search builds on AI Overviews, the AI-generated summaries Google offers for certain Search queries.
Industry backdrop: The launch comes days after a Wall Street Journal report suggested AI Overviews are draining traffic from news publishers.

Key Quotes

“An audio overview can help you get a lay of the land, offering a convenient, hands-free way to absorb information whether you’re multitasking or simply prefer an audio experience,” Google said in a blog post.

Implications

For users: Search becomes more like a personal podcast, potentially shifting how people learn on the go.
For accessibility: Audio Overviews cater to people with visual impairments or reading difficulties, broadening access to web knowledge.
For publishers: As AI-generated answers grow more immersive, worries about dwindling referral traffic—and the revenue tied to it—are likely to intensify.
For Google’s ecosystem: The move ties NotebookLM, Gemini and core Search closer together, signaling a future where audio is a standard output for AI explanations.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/13/google-tests-audio-overviews-for-search-queries/