Microsoft has launched an AI-powered visual search feature.

The new feature lets you take a picture of an object, animal, or thing with your phone to search for it online. The feature reminds us of Google Lens, another AI-powered technology that uses your smartphone camera and deep machine learning to not only detect an object, but understand what it detects and offer actions based on what it sees. Microsoft's version is available in the Bing app on iOS and Android.

It's also available in the Microsoft Launcher on Android and Microsoft Edge on Android (coming soon to Edge on iOS, as well). You can use it to search for things like breeds of cats, historic buildings, and even types of flowers. The feature will try to identify what it sees and, in some cases, offer up places to buy what it recognises, like clothing. It's a handy tool if you don't know what exactly to search.

“Sometimes, it is almost impossible to describe what you want to search for using words,” said Microsoft’s product lead for Bing Images, Vince Leung, in a blog post. "For example, imagine hiking through a meadow and seeing a flower that you’ve never seen before... Bing’s Visual Search can help you identify and find more information from your snapshot of the flower," he added.

Let us know in the comments if you tested it out. We plan to compare it to Google Lens soon to see which works best.