December 12, 2024 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — “Heatwave” was this year’s most searched term among Filipinos on Google, a confirmation of the extent of the extreme temperature experienced in most parts of the country earlier this year.
Terms related to artificial intelligence were also among the most searched, the technology company’s annual “Year in Search” showed.
With AI changing the global information ecosystem this year, Filipinos are among those who have spent time online trying to learn more about this breakthrough technology.
The list, however, also revealed that Filipinos continue to rely on the popular search engine to learn about breaking news and current events.
Veteran actress Jaclyn Jose – who passed away in March – was second in the list, followed by Olympics double gold medalist Carlos Yulo and Pixar film Inside Out 2, which was released in June.
Other most searched terms among Filipinos this year were “climate change,” “Character AI,” English singer Liam Payne, “AI detector” and “Gemini.”
Character AI is an AI-powered chatbot that can generate human-like responses, while Gemini is the generative AI chatbot developed by Google.
Payne, a member of English pop boy band One Direction, died in an incident at a hotel in Argentina on Oct. 16.
“With six of the top 10 overall search terms being news, the results show that Filipinos continue to rely on Google Search to learn more about the latest news. From current events to breaking developments, people trust Google Search to show them deeper information and insights about anything that grips the population’s attention at any given time,” Google Philippines said in a statement.
“Three of the top 10 searches relating to AI also prove that the Philippines is a tech-savvy country willing to learn more about the latest innovations,” it added, citing its 2024 e-Conomy Southeast Asia Report.
For the first time, Google also included a separate list of AI-related terms that are commonly searched by Filipinos.
Aside from the three that joined the overall list, the list also included “Humanize AI,” “AI Chat,” “Gizmo,” “Viggle AI,” “Runway AI,” “PixVerse” and “Perplexity” – many of which are applications that use AI to generate content.
By category, top searches include “heat wave” for news, “Carlos Yulo” for sports and male personalities, “Queen of Tears” for shows or series and Korean series, “Sining” for songs or lyrics, “Sprunki Horror Music” for games, “BINI” for female personalities, “Inside Out 2” for movies and “Jaclyn Jose” for farewells.
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