Last month Google started rolling out their next evolution in search and they call it the Knowledge Graph. Here’s how they describe it:

The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more—and instantly get information that’s relevant to your query. This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.

Go to Google and search “Tom Cruise.” In addition to the typical results (links to his official website, Wikipedia and IMDb pages), you will surely notice the Knowledge Graph to the right. Google’s search engine now aims to understand your query and pull together relevant information for you to easily glance at. You’ll see an image of the actor, along with a brief description borrowed from Wikipedia including date of birth, his spouse, children, and a list of the movies he’s been in. Underneath all that you’ll find a “people also search for” section that serves as a recommendation hub for further research.

To reiterate, the Knowledge Graph will provide information based on your query. For example, if you search “Empire State Building” you can quickly glance to the right to find relavant information such as the height of the building and architectural styles.

It may not seem like a giant leap in the evolution of search on paper, but the more you take advantage of Google’s new offering you’ll come to notice that the Knowledge Graph does come in handy and marks a step in the right direction for intuitive search. Google explains it all in a video embedded after the break.

[Via Google]