Google I/O is clearly the "We're extremely jealous of ChatGPT" show, and the first hour was packed with Google announcing generative AI features for every input box the company has control over. The company's most important input box is the one on the homepage of Google.com, and wouldn't you know it, that's getting generative AI, too. But didn't Google already release a generative AI thing? It did, but that was Bard, and Bard is not part of Google Search. Bard is just its own chatbot system, sequestered away in its own little sandbox at bard.google.com. Bard was Google's answer to ChatGPT. Putting generative search on Google.com, with its billions of daily users, is Google's answer to Bing.
Part of the reason Bard wasn't integrated into Google Search right away was that 1) Google is cautious about generative AI, and 2) generative AI is very expensive to run at scale. So the company is taking a slow approach to all of this, as opposed to what Microsoft is doing. So, for Google.com, the "Search Generative Experience" will be an opt-in setting from a new "Search Labs" feature. The Search Generative Experience will try to answer your question with a huge block of text that appears before the Google Search results. On Google's demos, the standard 10 blue links are nowhere to be seen; you'll have to scroll down to see them. Sometimes it even shows ads above the generative results box, pushing everything down even further
The Search Generative Experience will eventually be available on Chrome desktop and the Google App on Android and iOS in the US, in English only. You can sign up for the waitlist here, and Google says it will start inviting people in the coming weeks.
Updated:12:03 AM CEST Sep,22
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