Highlights:
- Launched in May, SGE is currently accessible exclusively through Google’s Search Labs early access program.
- When a user searches for information about a specific travel destination, the SGE panel can furnish a comprehensive natural language overview of the location and a list of the websites from which the information was gathered.
Recently, Google LLC introduced enhancements to its experimental Search Generative Experience (SGE), a new iteration of its search engine utilizing generative artificial intelligence to improve search results.
SGE is an augmented version of Google’s search engine, featuring a new panel above search results pages. This panel showcases AI-generated text to enhance the user’s search experience. In the recent updates, SGE incorporates additional images and videos to complement its explanations and reduces the time required to generate overviews for user searches on various topics.
Launched in May, SGE is currently accessible exclusively through Google’s Search Labs early access program. By clicking the Labs button within the Google mobile app and Chrome Beta, users can gain access to upcoming features. However, there is a waiting list, and the company commits to notifying users via email once they gain access to the program.
When a user searches for information about a specific travel destination, the SGE panel can furnish a comprehensive natural language overview of the location and a list of the websites from which the information was gathered. Below the text, a shortcut allows users to ask AI-suggested follow-up questions or input their own queries.
According to Hema Budaraju, Google Search’s Senior Director of product management, many individuals find it simpler to comprehend something visually rather than through written text. In response to this preference, Google is incorporating images and videos into its generative AI-powered overviews to accommodate these users.
In the future, when a user searches for queries like “Which is the smallest bird of prey?” SGE will present an image of the bird in question and offer relevant information sourced from the web. Shortly, SGE will introduce videos to its overviews in situations where it believes displaying actions in motion, such as demonstrating a yoga pose or explaining how to remove a stubborn stain, would be more beneficial.
The second recent update is more of an incremental improvement. According to Budaraju, Google has enhanced SGE’s generative powers to deliver overviews faster. It can now generate AI overviews in half the original time it took, and Google remains committed to further improving this speed.
Lastly, Google incorporates “publish dates” into the links displayed in SGE’s results. As Budaraju clarifies, SGE primarily serves as a starting point, guiding users to discover more useful information on the web. For this reason, it consistently displays links to its search results beneath the AI overviews.
Budaraju stated, “To help you better understand how recent the information is from these web pages, we recently added publish dates to links. And we’re continuing to experiment with new, easier ways for people to find web pages that support information in AI overviews.”