Google will use AI-generated answers in search results, says CEO Sundar Pichai

The feature will soon be available in other countries, he added.

Mountain view:

Google said on Tuesday it would feature AI-generated answers to online queries made by users in the United States, in one of the biggest updates to its search engine in 25 years.

“I’m excited to announce that we will begin rolling out this completely revamped experience, ‘AI overviews,’ to everyone in the US this week,” Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said at an event in California.

The feature will soon be available in other countries, he added.

With the change, many of Google’s search results will feature an AI “overview” at the top of the page, before the more typical breakdown of links and resources.

The search engine’s AI responses, generated by Google’s Gemini AI technology, offer a paragraph or two of explanation with links to the online sources that provided the information.

“You can ask whatever is on your mind or whatever you need to do – from research to planning to brainstorming – and Google will take care of the legwork,” said Liz Reid, head of Google’s search team.

The move appears to be a response to growing pressure from AI-based search engines like Perplexity and repeated rumors that ChatGPT creator OpenAI is building its own AI search tool.

Creators and small publishers are nervous about the change, fearing that users will no longer click on websites to find information.

Research firm Gartner predicts that web search engine traffic will drop 25% by 2026 due to the introduction of AI bots and similar features.

Google rejected the suggestion that ChatGPT-style chatbots could impact its business.

“We found that with AI overviews, people use Search more and are more satisfied with its results,” said Reid.

“Instead of splitting your question into multiple searches, you can ask the most complex questions, with all the nuances and caveats you have in mind, all at once.”

– ‘Intuitive and useful’ –

Google’s announcement was part of an AI-focused presentation that opened Google’s annual I/O developer conference in Mountain View, California.

The company will also soon begin testing applying AI to searches based on video content as a query source, according to Reid.

These multimodal queries were among the highlights of OpenAI’s Monday launch of GPT-4o, an update to OpenAI’s flagship model that could generate content or understand commands in voice, text or images.

OpenAI’s update to its technology has proven to be extremely conversational – capable of telling jokes, writing songs, and helping tutor a student in algebra.

Google, like OpenAI, also showed demonstrations of employees asking their AI to recognize their surroundings through a smartphone’s video camera and other assistant-like abilities.

This capability is designed to be “conversational, intuitive and useful,” according to Sissie Hsiao, general manager of Gemini Experiences and Google Assistant.

“You can collaborate on the smartest, most personalized Gemini ever.”

(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)