Google Knowledge Graph

[7] Initially available only in English, it was expanded in December 2012 to Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian and Italian.

Search Engine Land expressed indications that Google was experimenting with "numerous models" for gathering meaning from text.

It was reported to be different from the Knowledge Graph in that it gathered information automatically instead of relying on crowd-sourced facts compiled by humans.

This feature uses data from Google Knowledge Graph,[17] an extensive database that organizes and interconnects information about entities, enhancing the retrieval and presentation of relevant content to users.

By May 2016, knowledge boxes were appearing for "roughly one-third" of the 100 billion monthly searches the company processed.

[11] Dario Taraborelli, head of research at the Wikimedia Foundation, told The Washington Post that Google's omission of sources in its knowledge boxes "undermines people’s ability to verify information and, ultimately, to develop well-informed opinions".

Google promptly changed the featured snippet for the search query and issued a formal apology.