Google expands AI-powered search language support in Nigeria to include Yorùbá and Hausa, boosting local language accessibility for AI search features.

Users can ask complex questions in text or voice in their preferred language, enabling a more natural web exploration.

The current language list spans Afrikaans, Akan, Amharic, Hausa, Kinyarwanda, Afaan Oromo, Somali, Sesotho, Kiswahili, Setswana, Wolof, Yorùbá, and isiZulu across multiple African countries.

Attribution to Onome Amuge, Online Editor of Business A.M, with contact links for further information.

A cited Google-Ipsos report titled ‘Our Life with AI: Helpfulness in the Hands of More People’ highlights Nigeria’s rapid AI adoption in learning, work, and entrepreneurship, portraying AI as an enabler of innovation and self-employment.

The article includes ancillary links to related Nigerian news from PM News Nigeria, while keeping the main focus on Google's language expansion.

This update follows Google’s February launch of WAXAL, an open-source speech database created with African universities to support speech recognition and voice assistants.

The Waxal language project combines machine learning, linguistic research, and community collaboration to improve AI understanding and generation of African languages.

A Kano student can ask questions in Hausa and a trader in Ibadan can seek information in Yorùbá, illustrating practical, region-specific use cases.

Examples include a Kano student asking in Hausa and an Ibadan trader seeking Yorùbá guidance.

The rollout reflects a broader trend of localising AI tools for emerging markets where linguistic diversity shapes adoption.