Google is adding more AI to search, allaying doubts that the company is losing market share to competitors like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Google said at the Google IO 2024 developer event on Tuesday that it is rolling out AI-powered Overview to users in the United States. The company is also considering using Gemini as an agent for things like travel planning.
Liz Reid, head of search at Google, said the company has built a custom Gemini model for search that combines real-time information, Google rankings, long context, and multimodal features.
AI overview
Since last year, Google has been testing an AI-powered overview through its Search Generation Experience (SGE). It's currently rolling out to “hundreds of millions of users” in the U.S. this week, and plans to have it available to more than 1 billion people by the end of the year.
“We hear that our users are finding search more useful than ever. At this point, we have responded to billions of queries. And we hear it over and over again. “What we're saying is that people like this combination of insight, coupled with the ability to dig deeper and hear human perspectives and opinions from a variety of authoritative sources,” said Reed. He talked about the combination of results.
Image credit: Google
There has been a lot of criticism about how AI-powered search will change the way the web and websites work, and how it will impact business and journalism. Google said that during testing of its AI Overview feature, it observed people clicking on a greater variety of websites.
Reid said users won't see an AI overview if traditional search alone yields sufficient results. He said this feature is more useful when the queries are more complex and the information is spread out.
Using Gemini's agent functionality
Google also wants to use Gemini as an agent to complete tasks such as planning meals and trips. If you enter a query like “Plan your girlfriend's 3-day meals for a family of 4,'' you'll get links and recipes for her 3-day meal plan.
Image credit: Google
“We also look at planning. Whether it's planning a trip or planning a party, planning is usually a field that involves a lot of fun. But it also requires a lot of work. So we , asked the question, how can we take the work out of the plan for you?'' Reed said.
The company also uses Gemini to organize search results pages with different elements based on a query.
There are many posts about using ChatGPT as a meal planner. Companies like Booking.com, Kayak, and more recently Expedia are bringing AI-powered features to travel planning. Startups like Perplexity and Arc browser maker The Browser Company are building new versions of search that provide contextual and summarized search results. Google is trying to address all of these phenomena by making search results pages more dynamic.
