
Starting with the Pixel 3, though, Google Lens runs in real-time in the Google Camera viewfinder. On the Pixel smartphones, the Google Camera app has a dedicated shortcut to launch Google Lens. To access Google Lens on most smartphones, you can either pull up the Google Assistant and tap the Lens shortcut, open any photo in Google Photos and tap the Lens shortcut, or launch the dedicated Google Lens app (which is just a shortcut). Since its debut, Google Lens has received updates to suggest outfits, recognize works from local artists, scan restaurant menus, overlay translated text, and do other cool things.

It was announced at Google I/O 2017 with features like the ability to identify what kind of flower you're looking at, pull up information on a restaurant you're seeing, or recognize Wi-Fi network entry credentials.


For context, Google Lens is a tool that uses computer vision to analyze what you're looking at.
