• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 8, 2012

Building artificial intelligence into search engines that can identify intent prior to an action will require more knowledge than engineers can muster today, but a series of improvements has laid the foundation for Google to take one step closer.

On Wednesday, the company introduced new tools such as an improved voice search app for Apple products and the ingratiation of Gmail into search query results.

The voice search tool for the iPhone and the iPad, expected to roll out later this week, offers similar capabilities to Apple's Siri technology. Speaking the search query into the device rather than typing it will allow users to find information about weather, restaurants, the arts, and other areas.

Google also plans to allow signed-in search users and Gmail subscribers to access email from the search engine. The Gmail results will appear on the right rail of the search page or in the main search results by typing the keyword "gmail" in the search box. An icon on the page will allow users to withhold Gmail results for a specific search session.

Tests will run with about 1 million of the 425 million Gmail users who request access to the trial.

Integrating email into search results might not appeal to everyone. "I prefer a bucketed approach, but there are many in the younger generation who want everything integrated," said Jeffrey Rohrs, head of marketing research at ExactTarget.

On Tuesday, Google updated its Maps feature to add live traffic updates to more than 130 smaller cities across the United States, as well as the capitals of Colombia, Costa Rica, and Panama.

It appears that Google will give users what a student panel at the April MediaPost Search Insider Summit wanted. The Florida students described one dashboard to access social, email, search and more.