Google is testing a brand new Search function that’s awfully just like AI Overviews

Key Takeaways

  • Google’s AI Overview function had a rocky begin as a consequence of inaccuracies and probably harmful ideas.
  • Google now has a brand new Search function in testing, just like AI Overviews however with a special UI.
  • The brand new function lacks clear AI-generated labeling, making it difficult for normal customers to discern between human-generated and AI-generated content material.



Google’s AI Overview function is a good suggestion with a nasty execution, and it seems to be like Google has a second comparable Search function within the works.

The tech big’s AI Overviews have been first noticed in motion all the way in which again in Might 2023, and formally introduced at Google I/O earlier this yr. Basically simply concise summaries of solutions to your search queries, the function bought off to a rocky begin when it began displaying customers inaccurate and probably harmful outcomes, like suggesting that astronauts discovered cats on the moon, advising customers to eat rocks, suggesting customers so as to add glue to their pizza to make sure its cheese sticks properly, and extra.


Google finally fastened its Overviews drawback by chopping again on them, and guaranteeing that the software would not supply data from web sites like Reddit and Quora, except completely mandatory.

Contemplating that the software’s debut was executed poorly, it has left a nasty style for a lot of. That’s the reason we’ll method Google’s upcoming Overview-like function with skepticism.

The brand new software, highlighted by Barry Schwartz on X (Twitter), by way of Android Authority, was first believed to be a tweaked model of AI Overviews. Nevertheless, Google was fast to level out that the brand new UI customers is perhaps seeing on high of their Search outcomes is a very separate function which is presently in testing, and unrelated to AI Overviews.


Seems to be prefer it serves the identical objective


The truth that Overviews and the supposed new in-testing software spotlight the identical data, albeit in barely totally different phrases, is what prompted most to imagine that the brand new software may simply be an extension of Overviews.

Extra importantly although, customers that noticed the brand new software have been alarmed by its omission of distinguished ‘Generated by AI’ labeling. Within the case of Overviews, a transparent label is offered proper on the high of the abstract, as seen within the (left) picture above. Within the case of Google’s new in-development function, the AI-generated label stays hidden till customers press the tiny ‘Extra’ button beneath the abstract, making it difficult for a daily discern between human-generated and AI-generated content material.

Contemplating that the software remains to be in testing, it’s doubtless that Google will introduce a extra conspicuous AI label to it. Regardless, based mostly on its first seems to be, the function seems to serve the identical objective as Overviews, making it sort of redundant, at the least within the US.


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