Expanding the helpfulness of AI Overviews

Over the years, we’ve continuously redefined what a search engine can do to better serve the needs of our users – whether that’s helping you search with your voice or with images through Google Lens.

With generative AI, we’ve been on the journey of reimagining Search once again and have been thoughtfully approaching this shift, prioritizing approaches that benefit users, while sending valuable traffic to publishers and supporting a healthy, open web. We’ve been learning from AI experimentation in Search Labs and these experiments guide how we roll out AI features in Search more broadly.

We took our first step with the launch of our gen AI experiment in Search Labs last year, where we saw positive feedback, globally and in India, with opted-in users in India appreciating our India-focused features like the bilingual toggle and text-to-speech capability.

In May, we launched AI Overviews in Search, starting with the U.S., to help people quickly find information and discover all the web has to offer. Already, people are asking longer questions, diving deeper into complex subjects and uncovering new perspectives — which means more opportunities for people to discover content from publishers, businesses and creators.

Now, we’re bringing AI Overviews to six new countries, including India, sharing a few updates around our ongoing work to connect people to the richness of the web, and introducing helpful updates for AI Overviews in Search Labs.

Expanding AI Overviews to more places around the world

We extensively test how people respond to updates to Search. Since launching in the U.S., we've found people who use AI Overviews use Search more and are more satisfied with their results. People who are looking for help with complex topics are engaging more and keep coming back for AI Overviews.

After extensive testing and positive feedback, including in the U.S. and in Search Labs globally, we’re bringing the helpfulness of AI Overviews to six new countries: India, United Kingdom, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil – along with local language support in each country.

In India, we’re rolling out AI Overviews in English and Hindi and are also introducing popular India-first features that were well-received during our Search Labs experiment: helping you easily switch between English and Hindi results with the language toggle button, and listen to responses with Text-To-Speech by tapping the 'Listen' button.

AI Overviews in Search are rooted in our core quality and safety systems, which we have been refining for decades to deliver reliable and high-quality information. We’ll be rolling this expansion out gradually over the course of several weeks, with a focus on maintaining Search's high bar for information quality. Through our testing in these markets, we’ve found that people prefer using Search with AI Overviews, and they find their search results more helpful. In fact, as part of the testing, we've seen that Indian users listen to AI Overviews responses more often than other countries.

Connecting with the web

As we evolve the Search experience with AI Overviews, we remain focused on helping people access information and perspectives from a diverse range of sources. With AI Overviews, we’re seeing that people have been visiting a greater diversity of websites for help with more complex questions. And when people click from search result pages with AI Overviews, these clicks are higher quality for websites — meaning users are more likely to spend more time on the sites they visit. Our continued focus on improving and growing Search also allows us to send more qualified traffic to the web.

Now, we’re introducing more ways to check out relevant websites while you search, with a new right-hand link display for AI Overviews on desktop – also accessible on mobile by tapping the site icons on the upper right. These updates are starting to roll out globally today for AI Overviews in all launched countries, as well as for Search Labs users in more than 120 countries and territories.

We're also currently testing the addition of links to relevant web pages directly within the text of AI Overviews (in addition to the prominent links we already show), making it even easier for people to click out and visit sites that interest them.

This experiment has shown early, positive results: Showing links to supporting web pages directly within AI Overviews is driving higher traffic to publisher sites. We’ll continue testing different ways of presenting information that’s most helpful for people, while prioritizing approaches that drive traffic to relevant websites.

As we launch in these new countries, ads appearing above or below AI Overviews will continue to provide valuable options for people to take action and connect with businesses.

AI Overviews can open up new ways to search that were never possible before. Now, more people around the world can use Search to ask new kinds of questions, find the information they need even faster, and explore the best the web has to offer. As we continue to gather feedback and refine the experience, we look forward to bringing this to even more people around the world.