Google’s AI chatbot,Bard, was late to the party compared to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Nevertheless, the search giant has expanded generative AI capabilities into some of its products, with Google Search being one of them. UnderSearch Labs, the company has opened up these experimental search features for thousands of people, enabling them to check out the power of generative AI on Google Search. Despite its wider expansion out of the US, Search Labs and Search Generative Experience (SGE) were still somewhat limited. That changes now with Google announcing support for its experimental AI-based search functionality to 120 countries and territories, deeming it SGE’s “largest international expansion yet.”
I’ve used SGE on myAndroid phonefor a few weeks, and while it can generate decent results, it’s still not perfect in all scenarios. This is to be expected since it’s not ready for prime time just yet, as highlighted by the Search Labs disclaimer upon startup and within search results. The recent addition ofimage and text generation to SGEhas the potential to be a game-changer, though.
Thisnewly announcedexpansion would give millions of people access to SGE. As a result, Google could obtain some crucial feedback as it goes about upgrading SGE’s capabilities in the future. Google says newly supported countries will find Search Labs on Chrome desktop first, with its arrival on the Google apps for Android and iOS expected “over the coming week.” Meanwhile, theSearch Labs support pagethat lists all the eligible regions has been updated with the new countries and territories.
In addition to the new regions picking up Search Labs support, Google is also adding four new languages to the mix — Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, and Indonesian. Furthermore, SGE users can now ask follow-up questions from the search results page, as illustrated below. However, this functionality will only be available in English and restricted to the US, with the rollout coming in the next few weeks, per Google.
Another feature announced by Google, which I feel would be quite useful for many out there, is the ability to differentiate between two words with the same meaning during translations. Google gives an example of a tie, which could either mean the accessory worn around the neck or a sporting event where neither team emerges victorious. Google claims that words that fall into this category would be underlined. Tapping the underlined word would open up its other definitions.
Rounding out the list of SGE announcements, Google says it will extend its AI-powered overviews to cover coding and health information. These overviews were previously limited to certain educational topics, such as economics, history, or science, Google said. The overviews appear when users hover or tap on highlighted words within an AI-generated search result. This latest functionality within AI-powered overviews will be available by December 2023, apparently, and only in English and the US to start. However, Google says more languages and regions would be added imminently.
