Under the company's Search Labs program, Google is launching its Search Generative Experience (SGE) in India for consumers to test out and provide feedback on generative AI-powered answers to search engine queries.

While the Google native search will continue to function as before, users who sign up to test the feature through Search Labs will be able to access it on Chrome and the Google app.

Here, users will be able to access the English and Hindi versions of the Search Generative Experience (SGE), which has previously been made available to consumers in select regions. In states where Hindi is relevant, users will be able to go back and forth between these two languages. There will only be English in the rest of India.

In addition, a text-to-speech option has been implemented in light of the huge number of new Internet users. A voice search function will also soon be available.

Based on Google's developments in generative AI, SGE is "another evolution" of search, according to Puneesh Kumar, GM of Google Search.

“By bringing the power of generative AI directly into Google search, it allows entirely new types of questions you never thought search could answer and transforms the way information is organized to help sort through and make sense of what’s out there.”

He said this will particularly help new Internet users, who may often get overwhelmed with the amount of information online and hoped they will be “able to understand a topic faster, uncover new viewpoints or insights and get things done more easily”.

Acknowledging that information quality is an extremely critical aspect here, Kumar said: “With any change we make to search we maintain our high bar for quality to uphold the expectations of billions of users who really trust us. Our work on this new experience is rooted in our ranking systems, and all the expertise that we have developed over the last two decades in understanding information quality in a deep way.”
It will first take a "more constrained, less fluid approach" to "make the model more fluid over time" due to the precautions that have been included into the product, according to him.

Google stated that it is committed to continuing to give worthwhile traffic to websites all around the web as generative AI finds its way into Search.

On the page, search advertising will continue to show up in designated ad spots. Google stated that it would uphold its commitment to transparency in advertising and to making sure that paid search results could be distinguished from organic search results. When Search adverts do display, the word "Sponsored" will still be in strong, black text.

These AI models, according to Google, have been trained to uphold the high standards of its search function, which it asserted will continue to get better over time.