Microsoft announced a major upgrade to the Windows search bar, giving users the ability to search using an image.
The feature is designed to work with screenshots. “Simply click the Bing Visual Search button in the bottom right corner and snip any part of your screen to search the web using the image,” according to the post.
Bing has had camera-based searches since 2017, but this new upgrade is designed to make it faster and easier for someone to find images similar to what they’re already looking at onscreen.
“We found people also wanted to search with screenshots, so we brought searching with screen snips to the Windows search bar,” says Nektarios Ioannides, Bing Image Search lead.
The feature recognizes clothes, furniture, animals, flowers, landmarks, celebrities and even text within images. There is also an API available so developers can incorporate the feature in their own apps.
The feature is rolling out to U.S. customers first, with International markets to follow and requires Windows 10 May 2019 Update or newer.