Google wants to keep you on the Play Store with ambitious new features

Google has boundless ambitions and knows how to give itself the means to achieve them. To be ever more present in users' lives, the multinational announced on Wednesday an update to its Play Store. The aim is simple: to transform its App Store into a veritable entertainment hub that you'll want to stay at. On the agenda are new functions, the ability to retrieve content from other apps and the generation of FAQs by AI.

Google wants to simplify app searches in its Play Store

At the I/O conference in May, Google presented new features for searching for apps in its Play Store. Two major additions will help you refine your search:

• The ability to enter your interests. The Play Store will introduce filters and allow you to tick your own search criteria, such as the type of game you want to play (action, adventure, MMORPG, etc.). To give you an idea, this is more or less the same search system currently offered by Steam.
  
  
  
  
• AI-generated FAQs. Last year, Google added summaries of reviews generated by artificial intelligence to its search results. This feature will also be part of the new version of the Play Store, and will help you to quickly get a better idea of what a game or application has to offer.

These additions, like all the other features announced by Google on Wednesday, will be added over the coming months and will only affect certain countries.

The creation of new areas to keep you in the Play Store longer

The Play Store is undergoing a major transformation, and to make it a central entertainment hub with a high retention capacity, Google wants to add new areas to it. For example, Japanese users will be able to access an area dedicated to manga and comics , with suggested reading apps, trailers and even free reading of the first chapters of certain works.

This addition is a first step, and we can predict that other areas will be made available to users, depending on their interests. India has also benefited from this feature, with a space dedicated entirely to cricket (the country's national sport).

Collections, retrieving content from your apps

With the aim of encouraging users to return to the App Store on a regular basis, Google has come up with Collections, a curation section of the App Store that retrieves content from applications that have already been installed, in the same way as AndroidTV. This new space, available only in the United States for the time being, is segmented into several categories: Watch, Listen, Buy or Communicate .

To give you an example, from Collections, you can consult Amazon offers, the latest additions to Deezer or recent series from your favourite streaming app. Fortunately, you can refuse to allow the Play Store to use data from downloaded apps.

Want more? Well, Google has also announced the ability to play multiple games on the same screen via Google Play Games, new offers on Play Pass (the $5 subscription that lets you play ad-free) and even more rewards for Google Play Points, the Play Store's cashback system.

It goes without saying that Google knows exactly how to make itself indispensable to its users. And you don't need a crystal ball to tell you that the Google Play Store is going to become the main player in smartphone entertainment (if it wasn't already), with no competition whatsoever.