Google Improves its New Search Generative Experience

The new Search Generative Experience that Google launched in public preview in May is getting better. Yesterday, Google detailed three updates that it recently rolled out to improve its use of generative AI in its search results.

Not to be confused with Google Bard, Google’s Search Generative Experience puts AI-generated answers at the top of its search results page. The company said that it recently made a “major improvement” to reduce by half the time Google needs to generate AI overviews. “we’re continually improving so you’ll see even faster responses over time,” the company said yesterday.

Google has also added images to its AI-powered overviews. “For example, when you search for something like “tiniest birds of prey,” you’ll quickly be able to reference what the bird looks like and get relevant information from the web,” the company explained. Starting next week, Google will also start showing relevant videos within some AI overviews.

Just like Microsoft’s Bing chatbot (and unlike ChatGPT), the Google Search Generative Experience cites its sources, and each AI overview includes links to websites Google used to generate its answers. Now, Google also indicates the publish dates for this link to help users see if the information Google used to generate its AI overviews is recent or not.

Google’s Search Generative Experience is currently only available in the US. To join the preview, you’ll need to sign up on the Search Labs page on Google Chrome or the Google mobile app.