Google launched its AI overview feature in search in the US back in May, and the results were less than satisfactory - the feature infamously recommended eating rocks and putting glue on pizza. Google still hasn’t explained why it thought it was a good idea to replace the old, AI-less search query overview with this new, shoddy feature branded AI, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out: AI is now the talk of the industry, regardless of actual availability.
Google announced today that its artificial intelligence overview will be successfully expanded to six additional countries, following a disastrous trial in the United States. New countries include the United Kingdom, India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil. At the same time, these countries will also provide local language support.
While AI Overviews may create a lot of illusion (and consider irony as reality), Google is happy to tell us that "younger users ages 18-24 are more engaged when they use searches with AI Overviews, people prefer searches with AI Overviews, and they view search results as more helpful." Whether that's more accurate is another question.
A link is now displayed on the right side of the AI overview for the desktop version (the mobile version can also be accessed by clicking on the website icon in the upper right corner). Google is also testing adding links to relevant web pages directly in the text summarized by artificial intelligence to facilitate users to view content of interest.
A new experiment in Search Labs lets users save specific AI overviews for future reference. You just click the new Save button that appears below the AI overview. You can then view your saved content by clicking on the profile icon and navigating to the interests page. This feature is only available to English-speaking users in the United States, and you'll need to first sign up for the "AI Overview and More" experiment in Search Labs.
Finally, in some AI overviews there will be an option to simplify the language with just one tap, which might come in handy when you are new to a topic and want to digest the information in a simpler way.