Google rolls out AI Overviews to six more markets including UK
Google has rolled out its AI Overview feature in search to a further six markets, including the UK.
Generative-AI search results launched in the US in May.
Starting on Thursday, AI Overviews will begin appearing over the course of several weeks in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico and the UK. There will be local language support in these countries.
Google said that AI Overviews will not appear in all searches. That said, tests have found that users largely prefer search featuring AI Overviews. Testing in the UK began in April.
Hema Budaraju, senior director of product, AI Overviews, at Google, said: “We continue to see that AI Overviews increase satisfaction and engagement for our users.”
The tool is proving particularly helpful for complex topics such as education and health, according to Budaraju. Furthermore, there is higher engagement from 18-24s when using search with AI Overviews.
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Preventing harmful content
Asked by The Media Leader how Google seeks to curb some of the inaccurate information that appeared in results during the US launch, Budaraju said: “Generative AI on search is in our core ranking and quality systems. When these AI Overviews show up, we lean on our core search safety systems — the guardrails designed to prevent harmful, hateful or explicit content from appearing.
“We have a number of evaluations and policies in place; if there’s unexpected content, we have ways to excise that. More importantly for us, we’ve done extensive work — we learn continuously through the feedback that we receive.”
Budaraju was keen to stress that those initial issues were not common. She added: “Some of the incidents that we’ve seen in May are one-offs — they’re not necessarily the mainstay of the queries that we see. Having said that, we take these really, really seriously. In addition, we also have local-specific testing that we’ve done over the last few months.”
Supporting publishers
Organisations such as the World Media Group have expressed concerns that the introduction of AI Overviews could divert traffic away from publishers.
A new right-hand-side blue panel on AI Overview search results on desktop will show links to other sites, allowing users to find sources easily. Plans to include links directly in the AI Overview display are currently in the testing phase. Testing so far, Budaraju said, has shown higher traffic to publisher sites.
Furthermore, Search Labs is inviting users to test two other functions: first, the ability to “save” an AI Overview search result to return to another time, including links; second, an option to simplify the language used in the AI Overview text.
Budaraju argued that it’s in everyone’s best interests, including Google’s, to ensure there’s a “thriving ecosystem” that sends “valuable traffic” to publishers.
“Everything that content writers do in terms of publishing original content, authentic content, perspectives that are important for people to hear — those are all the same things that are also factored into AI Overviews,” she said. “People who see these depths of perspectives — they’re engaging more.
“So I would say great, credible, authentic content with an original voice, and all the good practices that apply for search, apply for AI Overviews as well.”
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