Born in pain, Google's AI Overviews were launched last spring in a somewhat desperate attempt to remain relevant in the age of ChatGPT. The first few weeks were difficult, with responses that were incongruous or even downright dangerous to one's health. The search engine had to tighten a few screws internally, and eventually these responses generated by Gemini's AI began to be displayed everywhere in the world, except in Europe.
Europe in the crosshairs of AI Overviews
This is no longer the case. AI Overviews will appear in several European countries: Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland, Spain, and Portugal. France is not yet affected, but we can assume that this will not be long. Because there is a real challenge for Google, which views with a certain anguish the existential threat represented by search engines integrated into AI chatbots, as in ChatGPT, Perplexity or very recently in Claude.
And too bad if the AI gets mixed up and says anything. "Generative AI is experimental and can make mistakes", acknowledges Google which, despite everything, imposes AI Overviews in the eyes of all, without giving the possibility of deactivating them. After having launched When performing a search, the user can, however, filter the results with the "web" sorting option. The latter only displays results in the form of links, as any self-respecting search engine should.
We must therefore take the AI Overviews' answers with a grain of salt and not take them at face value, even if Google continues to improve and refine them. We are also waiting to see how these answers fare in languages other than English. We will soon be brought up to speed.
Source: Google
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