Google Introduces AI Overview Worldwide
Google’s AI Overview feature is rapidly becoming part of the search experience for users globally. Announced on Monday, the tech giant revealed plans to expand this AI functionality to over 100 countries.
Initially introduced in May, AI Overview employs generative AI to distill key insights from your search queries, presenting this concise information at the top of the results page. Although it received mixed feedback at launch, the program saw additional expansion in August. The latest rollout includes support for seven languages—English, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish—making it accessible to users in numerous countries.
AI Overview was first unveiled during Google I/O 2023 and was initially termed the Search Generative Experience. After spending a year in the company’s experimental Labs program, Google officially integrated Overview into their default search setup in May 2024. The feature was met with skepticism as it sometimes generated harmful and inaccurate suggestions, including bizarre dietary advice.
Despite these initial challenges, Google persisted with the rollout, extending the Overview feature to six more countries in August, which included the UK, India, Japan, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico. The company noted that AI Overviews encouraged visitors to explore a wider variety of websites when seeking answers to more complex questions. They also highlighted that clicks from search result pages featuring AI Overviews tended to result in higher engagement on those sites.
In October, Google announced further enhancements, including the integration of paid advertisements into the Overview results. The AI feature also allows users to employ Lens technology, enabling them to inquire about moving objects within video content. Lens not only links to visually similar products but also offers reviews and price comparisons for users’ specific searches.
As for the future of AI Overview, only time will tell if it will truly transform search as Google suggests, or if it will become another universally disliked feature similar to Microsoft Clippy, which users still recall with frustration decades after its discontinuation.