Google’s AI-powered search expands outside the US, to India and Japan

Google is bringing its AI-powered generative search experience to the first countries outside the United States, the company announced today, starting with expansions in India and Japan. The new AI-powered search functionality, also known as SGE (Search Generative Experience), will be available through Google’s search labs in these markets and will introduce a new feature aimed at making it easier to find information in its AI-based insights.

First announced at this year’s Google I/O developer conference in May, SGE is introducing a conversational mode in Google Search where you can ask Google questions about a topic and then ask it to send back answers. , similar to an AI chatbot. In recent months, the company has updated the experience with support for videos and images, local information and travel recommendations, as well as new tools to provide summaries, definitions and additional help for encoding queries.

The company also began experimenting with ads that would be embedded in AI-generated responses, looking to capitalize on the new space dedicated to the AI ​​chat experience.

With global expansion, SGE is customized for newly supported regions.

In Japan, users will be able to use Generative AI in their local language, while in India, it will support English and Hindi with language switching allowing users to switch between languages. other. It also adds voice input – something popular in India – so users can make queries instead of typing them and then listen to the responses.

And in both countries, Search Network ads will continue to run in dedicated ad slots on the page.

Along with these launches, SGE is introducing a new feature designed to make it easier to discover and visit web pages that save information offered in AI responses.

Starting today, users will see a new arrow icon next to information in an AI-powered preview that they can click to view relevant web pages. This allows them to directly visit the source of the AI ​​information, where they can learn more about the answer to their questions. This is first rolling out in the United States and will arrive in India and Japan in the coming weeks.

The company noted that since launching SGE, it has found the feature to be more popular with younger users. Google said the highest satisfaction scores are among 18-24 year olds, who like to ask their questions in a more conversational way.

Google also said people liked being able to ask follow-up questions and say they now ask longer, more conversational questions in full sentences. It’s a different experience from traditional Google searches where users simply type in a few keywords to initiate a query.

It further claimed that people found the in-app ads useful, but did not provide data on click-through rates.

To access SGE, you can find it in the Search Labs section of the Google app on Android and iOS and in Chrome on desktop.