A Alphabet, controlling company of Google, announced on Thursday (15) expanding its AI-generated summaries for search queries in six new countries, just two months after backtracking on some features following a problematic launch.
ADVERTISING
The search giant made AI Overviews – which are displayed at the top of a search results page before traditional web links – available to all US users in May, after spending a year testing an earlier limited version.
The feature was widely criticized after screenshots of factually incorrect responses circulated online, such as a pizza recipe that listed cola as an ingredient and a response that falsely claimed that former US President Barack Obama is Muslim.
O Google acknowledged the “strange and erroneous views” and announced updates to the product in a blog post in May. These updates added restrictions on which queries would display AI answers and restricted user-generated content from sites like Reddit from serving as source material for answers..
ADVERTISING
“I have enough evidence to say that quality is improving,” said Hema Budaraju, senior product director at Googlein an interview with Reuters.
She pointed to the data that the Google collection internally, which showed that users with access to the feature reported higher levels of satisfaction and searched for longer, more specific queries than users who did not.
As AI Overviews they are now coming to Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico and Great Britain, in local languages such as Portuguese and Hindi.
ADVERTISING
O Google is also adding more hyperlinks to the resourcethe. The websites will be displayed on the right side of the AI-generated response.
The company is also internally testing an additional update that addsaria links directly within the overview text, as part of an effort to “prioritize approaches that drive traffic to relevant sites,” it said in a blog post on Thursday.
The updates come amid concerns the media industry has been expressing for more than a year about the possibility that the AI-generated search feature could cost media companies referral traffic to their websites. Budaraju said the new update would have a “triple benefit” for the Google, consumers and publishers.
ADVERTISING
Last week, a US judge ruled that the Google had an illegal monopoly on research, paving the way for a trial that could force Alphabet to split. AI advances from rivals like OpenAI, supported by Microsoft, may pose an even greater threat.
Read also
