As Google expands into new countries, AI answers are available in Search

Google parent company Alphabet said on Thursday that it is bringing its artificial intelligence (AI) search query summaries to six more nations. This decision comes just two months after the company had to scale back some features following a problematic initial rollout.

The search engine giant introduced AI Overviews-which are brief summaries displayed at the top of a search results page, above traditional web links-to all U.S. users in May. This came after a year of testing a more limited version. However, the feature faced significant criticism when screenshots of factually incorrect answers, like a pizza recipe that included glue as an ingredient and a claim incorrectly stating that former U.S. President Barack Obama is Muslim, circulated online.

Google acknowledged the presence of “odd and erroneous overviews” and announced several updates to address these issues in a blog post in late May. The updates introduced new limitations on the types of queries that would generate AI responses and restricted the use of user-generated content from websites like Reddit as sources for these summaries.

In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, Hema Budaraju, a senior director of product at Google, expressed confidence in the improvements made to the feature. She cited internal data indicating that users with access to AI Overviews reported higher satisfaction levels and tended to search for longer, more specific queries compared to those without access.

The AI Overviews feature is now being rolled out to users in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, and Britain, with support for local languages like Portuguese and Hindi.

In addition to the geographic expansion, Google is also enhancing the feature by adding more hyperlinks. Websites will now be displayed to the right of the AI-generated answers. The company is also internally testing a further update that will embed links directly within the text of the overview, as part of an effort to “prioritize approaches that drive traffic to relevant websites,” according to a blog post published on Thursday.

These updates come as the media industry continues to express concerns that the AI-generated search feature could reduce referral traffic to their sites. Budaraju emphasized that the new update is designed to create a “three-way benefit” for Google, consumers, and publishers alike.