MANILA, Philippines – Google brought its generative AI-infused search feature, called Search Generative Experience (SGE), to the Philippines, Thursday, November 9, as an “opt-in experiment” for now.

Google debuted the feature in May 2023 at its annual I/O developer conference. The feature allows Google Search to answer queries like a generative AI chatbot would.

For example, if one asks, “What’s better for a family with kids under 3 and a dog, Bryce Canyon or Arches?” It answers with a detailed response, providing suggestions, rather than showing a traditional set of search results.

Some publishers have expressed worry about the tool further taking away traffic from sites, with users no longer needing to go to a site to get the information they want.

One publisher quoted by Reuters said the tool “is even more threatening to us and our business than a crawler that is crawling our business illegally.”

As Rappler has written previously, Google’s SGE scours sites for information, then indexes and summarizes the results using its Large Language Models. Traditional Google Search indexes sites, shows the results on the page, and leaves the decision to people on which site to go to, thereby driving traffic to said site.

An AI summarization may keep the user on Google, with their query satisfied, rather than going to another site.

Reuters reported that publishers are seeking compensation for how their content is used to train AI, while Google is said to be getting input from publishers and working on understanding the business model. In September, the company announced a tool called Google-Extended that allows publishers to block Google from training its models.

Reuters quoted Danielle Coffey, president and chief executive of US industry trade group News Media Alliance, who said the opt-out option is a “good faith gesture” but “Whether payments will follow is a question mark, and to what extent there is openness to having a healthier value exchange.”

A Google spokesperson also quoted by the site said, “As we bring generative AI into Search, we’re continuing to prioritize approaches that send valuable traffic to a wide range of creators, including news publishers, to support a healthy, open web.”

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Google Philippines, in their press release for SGE’s local rollout, said something similar:

“Hearing insights from others is always useful when making decisions, so Google has designed these new experiences to highlight and drive attention to content on the web. This makes it easy for people to dive deeper on the topic they’re learning about. As generative AI makes its way into Search, Google is committed to continue sending valuable traffic to sites across the web.”

The tool, which had been initially available in the US, Japan, and India, now comes to the Philippines, where media and publishers will likely face similar questions on how it will affect traffic. Media companies both compete with Google for advertising money, and rely on it for the traffic the search engine brings.

The experiment is available today on Android, iOS Google apps, and through Chrome at labs.google.com/search. – Rappler.com