Google has announced that its search engine summary feature is now available outside the US. This expansion comes two months after the search giant was forced to limit the availability of the feature due to problems generating accurate summaries during its initial launch.
Initial Launch and Challenges
In May, Google made AI-generated overviews, which were displayed in the search engine before regular links, available to all users in the US. Prior to this, the company had been testing the tool for almost a year with a limited number of users. However, shortly after the launch, the innovation was criticized, and many screenshots appeared online demonstrating inaccuracies in the generated summaries. For example, when searching for a pizza recipe, the search engine recommended adding glue to hold the cheese together.
Google acknowledged the problem and announced an update that was supposed to fix the situation with inaccurate summaries. As a result, certain restrictions were introduced along with the update, due to which AI-generated summaries began to appear in response to only certain user queries. In addition, Google has banned its neural network from generating summaries based on user-generated content from social networks such as Reddit.
Global Expansion and Improvements
“I have enough evidence to say that the quality is only getting better,” Hema Budaraju, Google’s chief product officer, told reporters. She added that the data Google collects on the use of AI-generated summaries indicates that users report a higher level of satisfaction with the quality of the feature.
Against this backdrop, Google has decided to open up access to overviews in the search engine to a wider range of users, adds NIX Solutions. Now they can be seen not only in the US, but also in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, and the UK. Moreover, support has been implemented not only for English, but also for several other languages, including Hindi and Portuguese.
As Google continues to refine and expand this feature, we’ll keep you updated on any new developments or improvements to the AI-generated search overviews. The company’s efforts to enhance accuracy and user satisfaction demonstrate its commitment to providing reliable and helpful information through its search engine.