Google has expanded its Search Generative Experience (SGE) to more than 120 new countries, including Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa. This expansion means that a lot more people have the option to experience SGE. Additionally, SGE now supports four new languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, and Indonesian, adding to its current support for English, Hindi, and Japanese.
To access SGE, users need to opt in via Google’s Search Labs program. Once they have opted in, they can use SGE on Chrome on desktop or the Google app on Android and iOS. In the newly added countries, SGE is accessible on Chrome on desktop beginning Wednesday and will be available in the Google app over the coming week. It is important to note that there are notes on the Search Labs page indicating that SGE and SGE while browsing experiments end in December 2023, but Google has not made any further announcements about the future of SGE beyond that date.
Google spokesperson Craig Ewer stated that the goal of the current phase of SGE is to gather feedback and iterate on the experience alongside users. Despite the looming end date for the current phase of SGE, with the major expansion and CEO Sundar Pichai’s previous statement that SGE will eventually be “just how search works,” it is unlikely that SGE is going away anytime soon.
In addition to the expansion, Google is adding new features to SGE. SGE results aim to answer queries without requiring users to click out to other sources. This represents a fundamental shift in how search results are delivered. Google has updated SGE to improve how it surfaces and contextualizes links. While it is unclear whether SGE results have changed click-through rates from search results to other sources, the continuous updates to SGE indicate that Google is committed to improving the experience for users.
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Despite these advancements and the widespread expansion of SGE, there are notable limitations to its accessibility. For example, users can only access SGE on Chrome on desktop or the Google app on Android and iOS. This limited accessibility may exclude a significant portion of the population that relies on other browsers or devices to access Google services. However, it is possible that Google will consider expanding SGE to other browsers in the future.
In light of the expansion of SGE, there are indications that Google is investing significantly in making SGE a core part of its search experience. This is further reinforced by CEO Pichai’s statements about the future of SGE. As the feature continues to evolve and expand, it is likely that SGE will become an integral part of how users interact with Google Search on a global scale.
