Google has announced an enhancement to its AI-powered search feature The feature is an AI summary tool that summarizes answers to queries entered into Google Search and appears above traditional search results

While the launch of the search product in May was terrible, Google has been quietly tweaking this feature

In a blog post, Google announced a number of updates to the AI search feature

In the post, Google claims that “people are visiting more diverse websites for help with more complex questions”

They further state that people who visit websites via AI overview probably spend more time on the sites they visit compared to traditional search results

To improve relevant website information, the company has added a new link display on the right side of the AI overview on desktop and a “site icon” button on mobile

Apparently some users may see links to relevant websites added to the text of the AI summary (in addition to the links already present) Again, Google claims that this experiment shows higher traffic results

There is concern that the AI summary could harm the website by preventing people from actually visiting that website to get information If Google is to be believed, the new linking system is said to be improving site traffic

The blog states that this feature is being rolled out, but we have not yet received it on our account At the time of this writing we had not yet seen this feature

This definitely seems to be an attempt to indicate the source of the information in a more user-friendly way

We wonder if these changes are a response to Microsoft Bing's version of the AI overview, which actually provides much better citations and is much more informative than Google's current tool

Google's beta version of search called “Search Labs” offers curious guinea pigs a way to test potential new features that may be coming to Google Search

Some of the features Google announced on this blog include the ability to “simplify” the language of AI-generated answers, as well as the ability to “save” an AI summary for reference

It feels like a dumbing down of what is already intended to summarize complex information

You must sign up for Search Labs to try these beta features, which appear to be available only to US-based searchers

AI Overviews will be rolled out to Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, and the UK with this update

It is unclear how Google will prevent another rock-eating situation in these countries The company has reduced the dissemination of answers from unreliable sources like Reddit and Quora, though

The company has also reduced the types of queries that could trigger an AI overview to appear in search results

Whether AI overviews will become a viable and valuable search tool remains to be seen