Google Could Make its Search Generative Experience a Paid Feature

Google could make the new Search Generative Experience (SGE) it’s been testing in a couple of markets a paid feature. The Financial Times reported yesterday that the company is considering making the AI-powered search results available with its new $19.99/month Google One AI Premium plan, which provides access to 2TB of storage and AI features in Google Workspace powered by Google’s Gemini Advanced model.

Google first started testing generative AI capabilities in its search engine a year ago. The experiment followed the launch of Google Bard, a standalone AI chatbot that has since been rebranded to Gemini and integrated across Google Workspace.

According to the report, Google executives haven’t made a decision yet about charging for ChatGPT-like answers in Google Search. This would be the biggest change to the business model for Google’s search engine, and Google needs to take multiple factors into account.

First of all, these AI-powered search results are much more expensive to deliver than Google’s traditional search results. Moreover, they’re also a threat to the company’s advertising revenue: Google makes most of its money from advertising, but companies could be less inclined to pay for search ads if Google’s Search Engine Experience leads users to click less on links.

Overall, the media industry is also still not thrilled about these generative AI tools that could reduce their traffic and revenue. That’s why a company like OpenAI has begun striking deals with news publishers to license their news articles to train its AI models.

According to the Financial Times, Google may eventually decide to add just some elements of its Search Generative Experience to its search engine over time, with ads continuing to appear alongside search results. A Google spokesperson confirmed to the Financial Times that the company was currently not working on an ad-free search experience, but added that it would “continue to build new premium capabilities and services to enhance our subscription offerings across Google”.