Google adds AI-powered comparisons, collections and more data controls to Play Store

Google on Wednesday launched a slew of features for its Play Store that aim to encourage users to use the app store to find and engage with content rather than simply visit it to download apps.

The Play Store is getting AI-powered app comparisons, automatically organized categories for similar apps, dedicated hubs for content, data personalization controls, support for playing multiple mobile games on PCs, and more features.

Notably, the app comparison feature is powered by Google’s Gemini AI model and it lets users compare apps in similar categories easily. When you search for an app that can do a specific task, like photo editing, the AI will suggest multiple options to help you quickly find the right app. Each of these suggestions is accompanied by a description that highlights its features.

The feature is obviously part of the company’s ongoing efforts to infuse AI into its services. The company said during the Google I/O event in May that it was using Gemini models to power AI-generated app reviews and FAQs on the Play Store that would summarize the most important reviews and common questions about game listings.

These new features follow a preview of its latest policy updates for the Play Store, which will go into effect on August 31. The company is planning to delete apps that don’t meet its standards en masse — this includes “apps that crash, do not have the basic degree of adequate utility as mobile apps, lack engaging content, or exhibit other behavior that is not consistent with a functional and engaging user experience,” Google wrote.

Collections and curated spaces 

We’re also getting a new Collections feature that is designed to help users find relevant content from their most-used apps. It will be available to U.S. users from today.

Long-pressing on the Play Store icon will now display a menu with seven categories: “Food,” “Game,” “Listen,” “Read,” “Shop,” “Social,” and “Watch,” each of which houses a selection of relevant apps and the content that you most recently interacted with.

For instance, if you were previously browsing headphones on the Best Buy app, that app would appear at the top of the list in the “Shop” category so you could quickly get back to browsing. The Play Store will also suggest related apps. 

TechCrunch learned during a demo of the feature that Google plans to add more categories to this list, like “Health & Fitness,” “Travel & Events,” “Sports,” and “Dating.” The company is also considering making Collections customizable so that users can group apps together as they wish and get recommendations for similar or related apps.

There’s also “Curated Spaces,” another feature that pulls together content into a dedicated hub so that users can explore more of their favorite content. The first of these spaces is “Comics,” essentially a hub for thousands of manga and anime titles for users in Japan.

More control over app data

Google is also letting users control which data associated with a particular app (e.g., app activity, purchases, and offers) can be used by Google Play.

By going to Profile and selecting “Personalization in Play,” users can turn off how Google Play uses data from apps to offer personalized recommendations and ads related to those apps. The company noted that it may take up to 24 hours for changes to take effect.

Multi-game support on PC

People who use Google Play Games on PC to play mobile games on their computer can now have two games open at the same time in two separate windows, similar to a split-screen setup. 

During a demo, Google opened up Clash of Clans and Disney’s new kart racing game, Disney Speedstorm, side by side to show off the feature. So this feature would let you, for instance, add troops to the training queue in Clash of Clans before you start another Speedstorm race.

The multi-gaming feature will be rolled out over the next few weeks.