Google has continued to expand Search Generative Experience (SGE). After launches in the US, India and Japan, a rollout in 120 other countries follows, from Mexico and Brazil to South Korea and Indonesia. In addition, the AI search will now support Spanish, Portuguese, Korean and Indonesian. However, regulations once again seem to throw a spanner in the works for a simultaneous European introduction.
It a familiar phenomenon by now: a tech giant introduces a new AI-powered product and keeps it outside the borders of the European Union, at least initially. In July, for example, the generative chatbot Google Bard was not available within Europe until months later than it appeared elsewhere. The culprit (at least from Big Tech’s perspective): EU laws regarding local user data processing. However, even in European countries outside the EU, such as the United Kingdom and Switzerland, SGE remains unavailable.
Hema Budaraju (Senior Director, Product Management, Search at Google) says that feedback so far has been very positive from the U.S., India and Japan. However, she does promise that more links will be available for source attribution going forward. Google presents a number of additional new features added to AI search. For example, it is now easier to ask follow-up questions after SGE has come up with an answer.
Experimental
By the way, SGE is still a Search Labs “experiment,” the same characterization we’ve seen with Bard. This lab does not only include search functionality, as Google Translate now also includes AI-powered capabilities. Henceforth, SGE can provide additional context for translations, such as for words with double meanings. The example Google cites is the word “tie”, which can refer to apparel as well as a draw in a sporting contest.
Also read: Google’s AI search engine now says where it get its information from