Google has announced its latest Artificial Intelligence powered Pinterest rival named Keen. This would- draw on the search giant’s machine learning expertise to curate topics from its startup incubator Area 120. Keen is a web and Android app that allows users to curate content from the web and share the collection with others.

In a blog post, Keen co-founder CJ Adams explained how users can make a "keen" about any topic or interest they wish -- from baking, bird watching, or researching typography -- by creating a title, and saving and adding related web searches, texts, and images. He touted how Keen is not intended to "be a place to spend endless hours browsing" but rather a place where people can share and grow their interests. 

Adams added for every keen created, Google will use Google Search index and machine learning to suggest related content. "The more you save to a keen and organize it, the better the recommendations become," he wrote. "Even if you're not an expert on a topic, you can start curating a keen and save a few interesting 'gems' or links that you find helpful. These bits of content act like seeds and help keen discover more and more related content over time." The keens can be made private or public, so users can control what is shared and who can contribute to it. At the same time, users will be able to follow keens created by others.

The company has never been able to break into the social space, a venue of online activity that generates scads of lucrative data for targeting ads. A Pinterest-style social network would really allow it to hone in on users’ interests and gather this information. And it does seem that data collected by Keen is being collated with everything else Google knows about users. You log into Keen using your Google account, and clicking on the site’s “privacy” link just points you to the Google-wide privacy policy.

Source- The Verge