Google is bringing its generative AI-powered Search to India: Here’s how it will change your searching habits

Google announced its generative AI-powered Search at Google I/O 2023 earlier this year. The generative AI-powered Search or Search Generative Experience (SGE) is a part of Search Labs and at the time of launch, it was available only in the US. Now, the company has announced that it is bringing this generative AI-powered Search to India. “Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re rolling out SGE as an experiment in Search Labs in India in English and Hindi,” Google wrote in a blog post announcing the development.

So, what’s new in Search and how will change your experience?

Improved query response

According to the details shared by Google, Search is getting a host of new and intuitive features. Google says that with the new generative AI capabilities in Search, users will see an AI-powered overview of key information to consider with links to dig deeper as an answer to their query. Simply put, they can either ask a direct question, which can be a complex query, or break down their query into simple questions with a host of follow up questions. “This conversational mode helps you explore a topic more intuitively,” Google wrote in the blog post.

Launching today: the Search Generative Experience (SGE) – available as an experiment in Search Labs.

Supercharge your search by getting:
📖 a gist of a topic with AI-powered overviews
🔎 pointers to explore more and natural ways to ask follow ups

Try the experiment here:… pic.twitter.com/kdBiol5J60

— Google India (@GoogleIndia) August 31, 2023

“Context will be carried over from question-to-question, to help you more naturally continue your exploration. You’ll also find helpful jumping-off points to web content and a range of perspectives that you can dig into,” the company added.

Image: Google

India-centric features

With the new Search Generative Experience coming to Search, Google’s search engine is also getting a bunch of new features that have been designed keeping in view various use-cases in India. For instance, Google Search users can switch from an English result to Hindi simply by tapping the language toggle button and listen to the response with Text-To-Speech by tapping the ‘Listen’ button. In addition to this, Google Search is getting a new feature wherein users can tap the microphone icon in conversational mode to ask follow-up questions instead of typing them. Google says that this feature will soon be available to the users.

Helping with coding queries

Google also announced that it the generative AI-powered Search will also help users understand and debug generated code easily. Google says that at the moment, SGE provides AI-generated overviews to help with tasks across a number of programming languages and tools. Segments of code in overviews are color-coded with syntax highlighting, so it’s faster and easier to identify elements like keywords, comments and strings, helping you better digest the code you see at a glance.

Who can access generative-AI based Search?

As far as availability is concerned, the SGE or the generative AI-powered Search will be available to opted-in users on Chrome desktop starting today. The company also said that it is rolling out this feature to the Google App on Android and iOS from today over the coming week.