Google began testing AI-summarized ends in Google Search, AI Overviews, two years ago, and continues to expand the function to new regions and languages. By the corporate’s estimation, it’s been a giant success. AI Overviews is now used by greater than 1.5 billion customers month-to-month throughout over 100 international locations.
AI Overviews compiles outcomes from across the net to reply sure questions. Whenever you seek for one thing like “What’s generative AI?” AI Overviews will present AI-generated textual content on the prime of the Google Search outcomes web page. Whereas the function has dampened traffic to some publishers, Google sees it and different AI-powered search capabilities as doubtlessly significant income drivers and methods to spice up engagement on Search.
Final October, the corporate launched ads in AI Overviews. Extra lately, it started testing AI Mode, which lets customers ask complicated questions and follow-ups within the stream of Google Search. The latter is Google’s try to tackle chat-based search interfaces like ChatGPT search and Perplexity.
Throughout its Q1 2025 earnings name on Thursday, Google highlighted the expansion of its different AI-based search merchandise as properly, together with Circle to Search. Circle to Search, which helps you to spotlight one thing in your smartphone’s display screen and ask questions on it, is now accessible on greater than 250 million units, Google mentioned — up from around 200 million devices as of late last year. Circle to Search utilization rose near 40% quarter-over-quarter, in response to the corporate.
Google additionally famous in its name that visible searches on its platforms are rising at a gradual clip. In keeping with CEO Sundar Pichai, searches by Google Lens, Google’s multimodal AI-powered search expertise, have elevated by 5 billion since October. The variety of individuals buying on Lens was up over 10% in Q1, in the meantime.
The expansion comes amid intense regulatory scrutiny of Google’s search practices. The U.S. Division of Justice has been pressuring Google to spin off Chrome after the courtroom discovered that the tech big had an illegal online search monopoly. A federal decide has additionally dominated that Google has an adtech monopoly, opening the door to a possible breakup.
