Back in May, Google launched AI Overviews in Search in the US, and the results weren’t great: the feature famously 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, non-AI previews for search queries with this new, AI-branded but inferior feature, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out: Everything has to be AI these days, regardless of how easy it actually is to use.
With that in mind, Google today announced the triumphant expansion of AI Overviews to six new countries, after the rather disastrous experience in the United States. The new countries that will have to make do with AI Overviews replacing the old AI-free (but much more accurate and reliable) overviews are the United Kingdom, India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, and Brazil. This expansion comes with support for local languages in each of these countries.
While AI previews can be pretty mind-blowing (and consider satire a given), Google is happy to let us know that it has seen “higher engagement from younger users, ages 18-24, when using Search with AI previews.” To that, we can only respond that AI previews are probably better than TikTok. Google also claims that “people prefer using Search with AI previews and find their search results more useful.” The fact that they are more accurate doesn’t seem to be a problem at all.
Regardless, there’s now a link on the right for AI previews on desktop (which is also accessible on mobile by tapping the site icons in the top right). Google is also testing adding links to relevant web pages directly within the text of AI previews, to make it easier to find what you’re interested in.
A new experience in Search Labs lets you save a specific AI presentation for future reference. Simply tap the new Save button that appears below your AI presentation. You can then view your saved presentations by tapping your profile icon and navigating to your Interests page. This option is only available in English in the US, and you must first sign up for the “AI Presentations and More” experience in Search Labs.
Finally, on some AI previews, there will be an option to simplify language with a single click, which could be useful if you’re new to a topic and want an easier way to digest the information. Google wasted a huge opportunity by calling this button “Dumb it down, please.”
Source