ALBAWABA – During its annual I\O event, Google has doubled-down on its vision of Artificial Intelligence redefining internet search, announcing the bringing of “AI Overviews,” which makes an AI-generated synopsis to appear at the top of users' search results, marking the biggest change in Google’s iconic search engine in 25 years.
Formerly dubbed as the Search Generative Experience (SGE), the revamped search engine will put Google Gemini AI model to work, providing brief summaries of the material gathered from the internet together with links to the original web sources on top of the typical search results.
“It can take a bunch of the hard work out of searching, so you can focus on the parts you want to do to get things done, or on the parts of exploring that you find exciting,” explains newly appointed head of Search at Google, Liz Reid, stating that “what we see with generative AI is that Google can do more of the searching for you.”
Reid adds that Gemini-powered online summary and response is not required with every search, The Verge reports, noting that results of someone for example looking to access a direct URL like Walmart would not benefit from the use of AI power to provide a simple link for the site at the top of the page.
“With AI Overviews, people are visiting a greater diversity of websites for help with more complex questions,” a Google statement reads, adding that the company discovered that when links are added in AI Overviews, far more users would click on them compared to when the page is displayed as a conventional search result listing for that search query.
