After a year in “Labs,” Google is officially flipping the switch on AI-powered “Overviews” in Search for all users, and the web will never be the same again.
Google first announced the Search Generative Experience, SGE, at I/O 2023. The new experience paired generative AI with search results to provide AI summaries and answers to a user’s query based on live information from Search. Over the past year, many have tried the experiment, and Google feels it’s time to launch it to the public.
Starting today, Google is making SGE’s “AI Overviews” the default experience in Search.
Powered by Gemini, this new experience in Search will see most queries given to the search engine come back with traditional results shoved down the page. AI Overviews tend to show a handful of links per query, though they don’t always appear, and usually only do once you’ve clicked to expand the full AI-generated response.
Google notes that the rollout begins with all users in the US today, with other countries to follow “soon.”
The company expects AI Overviews to be available to “over a billion” users by the end of 2024.
The company adds that AI Overviews are now a feature in Search, comparing that to a Knowledge Panel or Featured Snippet. It’s not something you can turn off entirely. Instead, Google will be adding a “web” filter to Search to skip AI answers, as well as other Search features, and just show links.
One of the fears surrounding Google Search’s AI makeover, though, has been how it will affect websites that get a lot of their traffic through Search. It’s been estimated that as much as 25% of traffic could be lost over the next couple of years by the change, and that’s with many websites already hurting – many even dying – at the hand of Search over the past few months especially.
Google says that, apparently, the handful of links that appear in AI Overviews get more clicks than the ones in traditional search. The company also adds that it will “continue to focus” on sending traffic to publishers and creators as it expands AI Overviews to more users.
Beyond the wider rollout, Google has also announced some new features it will test with Labs participants in Search. These include the ability to adjust AI Overviews through refinements such as simplifying the language used, multi-step reasoning for complex queries, planning capabilities, AI organization for search results, and using a video as a part of your search prompt.
Google teases that all of this is “just a glimpse of how we’re reimagining Google Search,” with more to come down the road.
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