Google brings AI Answers in Search to new countries, skips EU
Google search results in six countries are going to look different than people are used to with fewer blue links and more real answers.
At issue is the introduction of so-called AI Overviews at the top of search results pages.
AI Overviews are answers to search questions provided by a chatbot. In the US, that option has been available since last May.
The only thing is users in the EU will have to wait a while. Google does not want to burn its fingers on that. Legally, the EU has not yet determined its position on AIs and possible intellectual property infringement. The central question is: did AI companies train their models with copyrighted data and were they allowed to do so? Google is taking the safe option and letting it play out where regulators have fewer instruments like the Digital Services Act and the General Data Protection Regulation which could bring it to heel and impose fines in the billions.
Users of Perplexity AI will recognise Google’s new interface because it resembles the other search service. Perplexity is making search deals with major international publishers. That technology will replace Google’s and give readers of Time, Der Spiegel and Fortune, for example, answers to search questions on the site. Perplexity and the publishers share revenue from adjacent advertising.
AI Overviews are no longer experimental at Google. In the early phase of the US rollout, chatbot answers could be found in at least eight out of 10 cases. After some incidents surrounding the quality of answers, that percentage is now around 15%.
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