Google Expands AI-Powered Overviews to 6 New Countries: Enhanced Citations and User Experience

Google expands AI Overviews to six new countries, enhancing citation display and user experience. New features include right-side webpage citations, linked text navigation, and saved overviews. The expansion aims to improve content attribution and search functionality globally.

Staff Editor August 18, 2024

Google Expands AI Overviews to Six New Countries, Enhances Citation Display

Google has announced a significant expansion of its AI Overviews feature, rolling out to six new countries and introducing key changes to improve user experience and content attribution. The tech giant is also implementing a new citation display format for AI-generated summaries, aiming to enhance navigation and transparency.

The updated AI Overviews will now feature a right-side display for cited webpages, making it easier for users to access source material. On mobile devices, site icons in the top-right corner of the overview will provide quick access to citations.

Hema Budaraju, Google’s senior director of product management for Search, stated, “We’re constantly working to improve the user experience and ensure proper attribution to content creators. These updates reflect our commitment to both our users and publishers.”

In addition to the new citation format, Google is experimenting with linked text within AI Overviews. This feature allows users to navigate directly to relevant websites through clickable text in the summary. Early testing has shown positive results, with increased traffic reported to publisher sites.

The Search Lab is introducing additional features, including the ability to save AI Overviews and access them later on the Interests page. A new button to simplify AI Overviews is also being added. These features are currently available in the “AI Overviews and more” experiment for English queries in the US.

Internationally, AI Overviews are launching in the United Kingdom, India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, and Brazil, with support for local languages in each country. This expansion follows the initial launch in the US, where Google addressed early issues to improve the feature’s performance.

Google emphasizes its commitment to quality and safety in AI Overviews, implementing rigorous evaluation processes for each market and conducting extensive adversarial testing. The company states it will continue to learn and actively listen to feedback to further enhance the feature.

As AI Overviews expand globally, users can expect to see these new features alongside regular search results, providing a more comprehensive and accessible search experience.