Since early November 2024, users of Google Search in SADC countries would have noticed that something has changed: in the case of many searches, the list of search results is preceded by ‘AI Overviews’. The latter are, in the words of Google, “AI-generated snapshots that provide key information and links to related resources for a search topic”, that assist users in quickly finding what they might be looking for. These short sentences – typically under headings relating to the query – are followed by clickable links (a paperclip image). In addition, a box with further references appears to the right of the AI Overview.
The approach of providing AI Overviews was rolled out in the USA in May this year, for the purpose of testing various options and functionalities, adapting the product over time. More recently, AI Overviews were rolled out to a number of other countries, and in early November this approach was rolled out to more than a hundred further countries. Users from around the world (with personal Gmail accounts) could opt in to receiving AI Overviews since May already, thereby getting some advance experience of this innovation. Due to regulatory regimes relating to, amongst others, user privacy and IP, the AI Overviews function has not yet been rolled out in the EU and in some other areas.
In countries where AI Overviews has been rolled out, it is not possible to do a Google search without an AI Overview being generated. It is embedded in the search mechanism (and evidently also in the business model involved). The user can only exercise the option not to see the AI Overview. This can be done in a few ways:
- click on ‘Web’ above each newly generated overview after it appears,
- add ‘-AI’ at the end of each search query, which ensures it won’t appear at all, or
- add an extension to Chrome that eliminates the unwanted result before it appears.
It is, of course, very tempting for users first to look at the overview, before moving to the conventional search results, or simply to regard the overview as sufficient and to ignore the traditional results. After all, the traditional results mostly consist of references to websites or documents that require further effort to peruse, whereas the overview might give the impression of integrated and easily digestible information. Many ordinary users will probably find the overview sufficient and move on with their work.
AI Overviews is a product of AI, generated with the help of Google’s Gemini 1.5. Any instructions by lecturers to students to the effect that they are allowed to use Google for their assignments, but may not use LLMs (such as ChatGPT or Gemini), are simply out of touch with a changed reality; one can hardly instruct students that they may not look at the first part of the search results.
Not all search queries lead to overviews; the overviews appear in search results only when Google’s systems determine that these GenAI responses can be helpful.
It is no exaggeration to say that search – and, consequently, also research – has changed radically, and that this change has implications for all users … but especially for institutions of learning. The instructions to students regarding their assignments might have to be adapted, and university policies relating to the use of GenAI might need to change. In addition, it is now increasingly important that lecturers and researchers should understand how the nature of search has changed and that they should guide students towards informed and responsible use of digital tools, including generative AI.
In some respects, one can say that this change by Google also implies that the internet as we knew it has changed. (The implications for advertisers and information providers who rely on organic links for income are vast, but cannot be discussed here.)
Initial evaluations of the results of Google’s AI Overviews are somewhat critical as to the merits of this innovation. One can expect more extensive evaluations to appear soon.
Today, users have many alternatives for search, amongst others ChatGPT Search for paid ChatGPT subscriptions, which will probably become a free functionality in the near future. Given the importance of search in all its varieties and with all its different objectives, academic users of Google and ChatGPT Search are well advised to spend some time understanding the differences between search results from Google and ChatGPT Search. For a very recent and excellent head-to-head comparison of the two search pathways across informational, navigational, commercial and transactional queries, see datacamp.com/blog/chatgpt-search-vs-google.
