Google launched AI Overviews in its US search engine in May, and the results weren’t amazing—the feature famously recommends eating rocks and putting glue on pizza. Google still hasn’t explained why it thought it was a good idea to replace the old, unbranded AI overviews of search queries with this new, branded but inferior feature, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out: everything has to be AI now, regardless of its actual usefulness.
With that in mind, Google today announced the triumphant expansion of AI Overviews to six more countries, following a rather disastrous experiment in the US. The new places that will have to make do with AI Overviews replacing the old AI-free (but much more accurate and reliable) overviews are the UK, India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, and Brazil. The expansion comes alongside local language support in each of those countries.
While AI Overviews may be hallucinatory (and satire-for-real), Google happily tells us that it has seen “higher engagement among younger users ages 18-24 when using the AI Overviews search engine.” To that, we can only say that AI Overviews is probably better than TikTok. Google also says that “people prefer using the AI Overviews search engine and find the search results more helpful.” Whether or not they are more accurate doesn’t seem to be the issue at all.
In any case, there’s now a right-hand link display for AI Overviews on desktop (which is also available on mobile by tapping the site icons in the top right corner). Google is also testing adding links to relevant web pages directly in the AI Overviews text to make it easier to browse and see what interests you.
A new experiment in Search Labs lets you save a specific AI review for future use. Just tap the new Save button that appears below the AI review. You can then view your saved results by tapping your profile icon and going to your Interests page. This is only available in English in the United States, and you must first sign up for the “AI Reviews and More” experiment in Search Labs.
Finally, some AI Reviews will have the option to simplify the language with a single tap, which can be useful if you’re new to the subject and want to make the information easier to digest. It’s a huge missed opportunity for Google to name this button “Simplify This, Please.”
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