Google Spotlights Generative AI in Search at I/O 2024

Google is shining a spotlight on its generative AI offerings at the I/O 2024 event. The tech giant unveiled AI Overviews to users in the United States and new generative AI tools to elevate the search experience.

These offerings were powered by a new Gemini model tailored for Google Search. It reinforces Gemini's sophisticated features, such as multimodality, multi-step reasoning, and planning.

Google Unveils AI Overviews

One of the features introduced at the I/O 2024 event is AI Overviews, which streamlines the process of acquiring concise information. Through AI Overviews, users are expected to swiftly access a topic summary alongside relevant links for further exploration.

Google claims that this functionality has already been extensively tested through Search Labs and has garnered positive feedback from users for its reported convenience and effectiveness in providing comprehensive insights. AI Overviews will now be accessible to all users in the U.S. and will be progressively rolled out to more countries.

The tech giant reports that AI Overviews has the ability to diversify the range of websites visited for more intricate questions, enhancing user engagement with a broader spectrum of content.

Furthermore, according to Google, links included in AI Overviews tend to receive more clicks than traditional web listings, indicating the effectiveness of this feature in guiding users to relevant sources.

Google is also introducing customizable options for AI Overviews, enabling users to adjust the level of detail or simplicity to suit their preferences.

Moreover, Google's custom Gemini model empowers AI Overviews to address increasingly complex inquiries with multi-step reasoning capabilities. Instead of fragmenting questions into multiple searches, users can now pose intricate queries encompassing various nuances and specifics in a single search request.

Google Search for Planning

Google Search is not only focused on providing answers but also on assisting users in planning various aspects of their lives. The incorporation of planning capabilities directly within Search allows users to create tailored plans for meals, vacations, and other activities.

Additionally, Google Search leverages generative AI to curate AI-organized results pages, categorizing content under unique, AI-generated headlines for easy exploration.

This feature aims to simplify the process of discovering new ideas and perspectives across different categories, ranging from dining and recipes to movies, music, and shopping.

Google said that it is also enhancing its visual search capabilities by enabling users to ask questions using videos. This leverages advancements in video understanding technology, allowing users to seek information about objects and scenes captured in videos.

"This is just a glimpse of how we're reimagining Google Search - combining the very best of Search today with the Gemini model's advanced capabilities. Soon, Google will do the searching, simplifying, researching, planning, brainstorming and so much more," Google wrote in a recent blog post.