The idea of this experiment is for Google to offer exhaustive written answers generated by AI, providing an “overview” at the top of selected search results.
They started testing their new plan in a limited number of results in the United States, and now the test is expanding to the United Kingdom.
During the initial testing phase, this will only be visible to a small number of users in the UK who are signed in to their Google accounts while using the browser.
AI-generated summaries will only appear in certain search results, but Google now has a clearer idea based on its previous tests, which, according to the company, suggest that users find them helpful.
Google’s intentions for the future of AI and navigation
This SGE experiment started almost a year ago, when Google allowed users to test the new search experience through Google Labs. Users had to register and often wait for a while to have the opportunity to try out the new search results proposed by Google.
This was the case until recently, when Google decided to start displaying AI-generated results in a small proportion of search results for users in the United States who are not logged in, and now the development will be tested with a “small portion” of Google’s traffic from registered users in the United Kingdom.
One of the main concerns that Google and other technology companies have to address when it comes to generative AI models is that it is difficult to prioritize responses that sound human and are completely objective. They can generate (and it is known that they have) offensive, harmful, biased or simply inaccurate content.
However, Google is taking an approach where the answers will be more limited, even at the expense of fluency, to prioritize accuracy in search results.
Therefore, if there are not enough high-quality sources about a particular topic, it is likely that Google Search will not generate an AI response for queries related to it.
