Learn About

Learn About is a new experimental AI tool from Google. Google describes it as an experimental conversational learning companion. It is based on a LearnLM tweaked version of Google Gemini. I found it very intuitive so the easiest way to learn about Learn About (I bet I am not the first writer who thought this was clever) is to dive in and explore. A couple of comments. Google tries lots of things and often abandons them. This tool looks great and is free, but it is hard to know where this might go. Another thing – Google says the tool is available presently only in the U.S. and for those over 18. The age thing makes no immediate sense to me because if I was a high school or middle school teacher I would be so tempted to show this to students. I thought I should bring the stated age restriction to your attention.

The following image shows the screen you first encounter when opening the site. There are some sample topics to explore or you can answer the query in the text box (see second image).

You are invited to ask a question or even submit an image you want to learn about. The prompt says “Type or enter a file to start…”. After exploring a few questions, I was curious about the option of submitting a file. I didn’t really see a way to upload a file so I entered the URL of a previous blog post I had written about taking notes. Learn About accepted this input and sprang into action to help me learn about taking notes.

I interpret the suggestion that this AI tool allows for a conversation about a topic to mean you both determine what you want to learn and then take advantage of the options offered to determine how deep and in what direction you want to go. In the left-hand column in the image above you see suggested “subtopics”, the options of going deeper or seeing related images as options (see buttons in red box) and suggestions for related queries appear at the bottom of the main window.

I was curious about what images (one of the buttons) would be presented related to taking notes. See the following response from the tool and note the links to sources appearing below the display of images.

My suggestion is to enter a topic you want to explore and respond to the options to gain experience in what this tool offers. Additional information is available from Google.