Google recently found itself in hot water for the AI Overviews feature after it reportedly began showing incorrect and unhelpful answers for searched queries. The tech giant also issued a statement claiming it was working to address the issues. Now, a new report has found that the visibility of AI Overviews has dropped drastically, and is appearing for just 15 percent of the searched queries. Further, most of the time, the artificial intelligence feature reportedly only appears in a truncated format.
Google’s AI Overviews Witness a Sharp Drop in Visibility
According to a report by enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge, the drop in the appearance of AI Overviews in Google Search results began in mid-April. At present, the AI feature is said to be showing up for just 15 percent of the queries. On top of reducing the appearance, it was also found in the report that the majority of the AI-collated responses are showing up in a truncated format where a collapsed view of the answer can be seen.
The dwindling visibility becomes even more prominent when compared to the feature’s pre-release appearance. Before its official launch at the Google I/O event, AI Overview, which was then known as Search Generated Experience (SGE) and was an opt-in feature, appeared in 84 percent of searched queries, as per the report. One likely reason for the reduced visibility is believed to be the recent issues with the AI feature.
Google’s AI Overviews Faced Criticism for Hallucinations
Google launched AI Overviews in the US for all users in early May, and soon after, some users began reporting incorrect and odd responses to some queries. For instance, an X (formerly known as Twitter) user posted screenshots where upon searching for “cheese not sticking to pizza”, the AI suggested using non-toxic glue to the sauce. In the following days, many users found similar issues with the feature.
Last week, the tech giant responded to the criticism and claimed it was working “quickly to address these issues, either through improvements to our algorithms or through established processes to remove responses that don’t comply with our policies.” A separate report also claimed that Google was manually turning off AI Overviews for web queries.
