Google is testing AI-only search results, expands AI Overviews
Google has a new search experiment called AI Mode to compete with Perplexity and ChatGPT search mode, plus expanded AI Overviews.
Like it or not, Google is doubling down on AI-generated search.
On Wednesday, the tech giant announced that it's expanding AI overviews to more Google Search queries, starting with advanced math, coding, and multimodal searches. That's made possible due to Google's more advanced model, Gemini 2.0,, which now powers AI overviews.
AI Overviews is also expanding access to more users outside of the U.S. by allowing people who aren't logged in to see the AI-generated summaries, including teens.
Last but not least, Google is experimenting with a dedicated AI search chatbot, akin to ChatGPT search mode and Perplexity. It's like Gemini but combines Google's real-time search capabilities for the most up-to-date responses. The new feature, AI Mode, is currently available in Google's testing ground called Labs. But it's an indication that Google Search might soon have only AI-generated search results.
Recommendations to put glue on pizza and eat rocks be damned, Google has signaled that injecting AI into all of its apps and services is the driving force of its business strategy. In the announcement, Google's VP of Search Robby Stein said, "People are using Google Search more than ever as they get help with new and more complex questions." But that obscures the fact that AI Overviews can't be turned off and it doesn't address the hallucinations that still plague the model and might never go away.
Former Mashable editor Mike Pearl did an audit on the first six months of AI Overviews and found that while it's fine for simple queries, it still hallucinates on more "uncommon queries" by misinterpreting what's found on the web. It also erroneously builds on faulty queries like using baking soda to thicken soup (which you definitely shouldn't do.)
"If the basis for a search is wrong or flawed, and the AI Overview doesn't catch the problem, then it stands to reason the user won't notice it either," said Pearl. That's to say, at best, it could weaken Google's reliability as a search engine, and at worst, it could reinforce misinformation.
Despite persistent inaccuracies that have become something of a running joke (seriously, just Google "Google AI search fails"), the company is barreling ahead with new experiments.
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