Since October 28, users in more than 100 countries and territories can access AI Previews, Google’s explanatory and generative widget that appears above certain search engine results.

The tech giant first launched this feature in the United States before gradually expanding it to other regions. With its latest expansionAI previews are now available in Canada, Africa, Asia-Pacific regionEurope, the Middle East, Colombia, Chile and many other places.

“With AI insights in search, it’s easier than ever for users to find the information they need and discover relevant sites across the web, opening up more opportunities to connect with people. publishers, businesses and creators,” wrote Srinivasan, Google’s vice president for search quality. Cheenu) Venkatachary in a press release.

Previews of AI in Research Continue Global Expansion

When AI Overviews launched in May, it was initially only available to users in the United States. By August, access had been expanded to include the United KingdomIndia, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil.

Then, in October, Google added AI Overviews to the language offerings: it can now analyze and answer questions in:

• English
• Hindi
• Indonesian
• Japanese
• Portuguese
• Spanish

As Google noted, language is not tied to a geographic location. Google will now be able to accurately say that 1 billion users worldwide are using its AI products, since AI previews appear by default in search.

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Competitors and risks for AI in research

AI-generated answers to search engine queries have been a hot topic since generative AI became mainstream. Microsoft has incorporated its Co-pilot chatbot in Bing Search. Perplexity AI has created an AI-driven conversational search bot that pulls information from Google and Bing. Arc Browser provides AI-generated layouts to answer questions in Arc Search.

However, AI-powered search engines show the weaknesses of generative AI in an environment where information accuracy is paramount. Previews of Google’s Infamously Invented AI absurd or dangerous answers during its first launch. AI’s generative search functions sometimes struggle to accurately distinguish current events from past events, or answer relatively rare questions.

I’ve found that Google’s AI previews tend to answer “how” or “what” questions, even if I type a “why” question. This can sometimes feel like a buffer between my original question and an answer that Google would have provided at a glance. AI insights can sacrifice context and authority, driving users to other search engines or forums like Reddit.

“(T)he feedback we received on the AI ​​previews was very positive,” according to Venkatachary. “People prefer to use search with AI insights and find their search results more useful.”

AI Overviews has been controversial with media publisherswho fear it will remove views on websites. In response, Google added links to sources on the right side of the panel, making it easier for users to click back to the original news sources. In October, Google added inline links for similar reasons.

“In our testing, these updates resulted in increased traffic to supported websites compared to previous designs,” Venkatachary wrote.

While it’s unclear whether AI previews will endure long-term, Google’s extensive rollout suggests a strong current commitment to the feature.