Google has added support for Yorùbá and Hausa in its Artificial Intelligence-powered search features in Nigeria.
Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, Communications and Public Affairs Manager for West Africa at Google, announced the update on Thursday, explaining that it enables speakers of the two languages to access AI-powered search experiences in their mother tongue for quick summaries and conversational exploration.
The update is part of Google’s broader effort to make AI more inclusive across Africa, bringing the total number of African languages supported by Google AI Search to 13.
Kola-Ogunlade noted that the expansion allows Nigerians to interact with search in familiar languages. “A student in Kano can ask questions in Hausa, while a trader in Ibadan can seek advice in Yorùbá,” he said.
He added that the development goes beyond simple translation, emphasizing the importance of nuanced local information. “With the advanced multimodal and reasoning capabilities of our custom version of Gemini in search, we have made huge strides in language understanding. This ensures our most advanced AI search capabilities are locally relevant and useful in each new language we support,” he said.
The update enables users to ask complex questions through text or voice in their preferred language, making web exploration more natural and accessible for everyone.
