Looking a little like a response to the recent Bing updates, Google has Introduced the Knowledge Graph, which augments search results with meta data and information related to the search.
With the Knowledge Graph, Google can better understand your query, so we can summarize relevant content around that topic, including key facts you’re likely to need for that particular thing. For example, if you’re looking for Marie Curie, you’ll see when she was born and died, but you’ll also get details on her education and scientific discoveries:
The video dives deeper in and shows how they are trying to understand what you mean when you search and display more relevant information to you. This is basically an extension of what they do already (ie: displaying the answer to 2+2) but putting that into a side panel based on information they’ve gathered from other people’s searches. A bit like how Siri is supposed to work, giving you answers, not search results (again what Bing is using as a differentiating factor between their search and google).
Looking forward to this rolling out.