Google brings ’AI Overviews’ to India with country first features

Mangalor Today News Network

New Delhi, August 16, 2024: Tech giant Google has announced to bring its ’AI Overviews’ feature to six new countries, including India.

In India, the company is rolling out the ’AI Overviews’ in English and Hindi and are also introducing popular country-first features that were well-received during its Search Labs experiment.

"It will help you easily switch between English and Hindi results with the language toggle button, and listen to responses with Text-To-Speech by tapping the ’Listen’ button," the company said in a blog post.

The six new countries are India, United Kingdom, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil, along with local language support in each country.

Hema Budaraju, Senior Director, Product Management, Search, said as part of the testing, "we’ve seen that Indian users listen to AI Overviews responses more often than other countries".

"We’re introducing more ways to check out relevant websites while you search, with a new right-hand link display for AI Overviews on desktop - also accessible on mobile by tapping the site icons on the upper right," Budaraju mentioned.

People who are looking for help with complex topics are engaging more and keep coming back for AI Overviews. Google found that people prefer using Search with AI Overviews, and they find their search results more helpful.

"As we evolve the Search experience with AI Overviews, we remain focused on helping people access information and perspectives from a diverse range of sources," said Budaraju.

And when people click from search result pages with AI Overviews, these clicks are higher quality for websites - meaning users are more likely to spend more time on the sites they visit.

"Our continued focus on improving and growing Search also allows us to send more qualified traffic to the web," said Google.

The company is also testing the addition of links to relevant web pages directly within the text of AI Overviews (in addition to the prominent links it already shows), making it even easier for people to click out and visit sites that interest them.