Google’s AI search numbers are growing, and that’s by design

Google started testing AI-summarized results in Google Search, AI Overviews, two years ago, and continues to expand the feature to new regions and languages. By the company’s estimation, it’s been a big success. AI Overviews is now used by more than 1.5 billion users monthly across over 100 countries. AI Overviews compiles results from around the web to answer certain questions. When you search for something like “What is generative AI?” AI Overviews will show AI-generated text at the top of the Google Search results page. While the feature has dampened traffic to some publishers, Google sees it and other AI-powered search capabilities as potentially meaningful revenue drivers and ways to boost engagement on Search. Last October, the company launched ads in AI Overviews. More recently, it started testing AI Mode, which lets users ask complex questions and follow-ups in the flow of Google Search. The latter is Google’s attempt to take on chat-based search interfaces like ChatGPT searc ... Read full article.