Google Updates AI Overviews: Direct Competition with SearchGPT

Amid increasing competition in the search space, Google has updated its AI Overviews feature to enhance its competitive edge against SearchGPT, a rival search tool recently launched by OpenAI. AI Overviews are AI-generated answers that appear when users conduct a search on Google. The new version now includes a link display panel on the right, along with in-text links, making it easier for users to access the cited information within the answers.

Hema Budaraju, Senior Director of Search Product Management at Google, stated that this update will make it easier for users to access the websites they are interested in. Google introduced AI Overviews in May at its annual I/O conference. Previously, the links within the answers were not clearly shown, and users had to click a dropdown arrow to view the source information.

These changes make Google’s AI search product more similar to OpenAI's SearchGPT, which also provides in-text links and an expandable sidebar with source information. Built on GPT-4, SearchGPT has the capability to provide up-to-date information from the web. Currently, this tool is in testing and is only available to a small group of users.

However, Google’s AI Overviews have a broader reach, and there are still important differences between the two products. One major difference is that SearchGPT functions as a chatbot, allowing users to ask follow-up questions without conducting a new search. Additionally, OpenAI has signed multiple agreements with news publications, allowing them to use the content of these publications to train their AI.

While Google is also making efforts to expand citation sources, the company has not adopted the same approach of signing agreements with publishers in the U.S. Instead, Google has paid Reddit to train its AI on the vast data troves of the social media platform. Additionally, in 2023, Google announced that it had signed copyright agreements with 1,500 news publications in the EU under the European Union’s copyright directive.

As companies continue to experiment with developing powerful AI search products, publishers are closely monitoring how links to cited information will be implemented. For users, knowing the sources that AI uses can be very helpful in fact-checking or exploring a topic further. Budaraju emphasized that Google will continue to experiment with how information is presented while prioritizing methods that drive traffic to related websites.

"Displaying links to supporting websites directly within AI Overviews is driving higher traffic to publishers' pages," Budaraju said about the experiment.

Along with updating AI Overviews, Google has also expanded the feature to six new countries, including the UK, India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, and Brazil. The new version with links is now available in all the countries where it was launched, as well as to Search Labs users in over 120 countries and territories.

Additionally, Google is testing new tools in Search Labs for English-language queries in the U.S., such as the ability to save AI Overview results and simplify the language in answers.