Google's SGE is currently available in the United States, India, and Japan. Publishers are worried that the tool could reduce traffic to their links by as much as 40% and that users might not click on their links if the SGE summary provides the information they need. Google has stated that it is working to understand the business model of generative AI applications and is seeking input from publishers.
Key takeaways:
- Google has introduced a new search tool called Search Generative Experience (SGE) that uses AI to create summaries of search queries. The summaries appear at the top of the Google search homepage.
- Publishers have expressed concerns about the new tool, fearing it could decrease their web traffic, question the accuracy of the summaries, and whether they will be credited as the source of information. They also want to be compensated for the content used to train Google's AI tools.
- Google has offered a tool called Google-Extended that allows publishers to block their content from being used to train its AI models. However, this tool does not allow publishers to block their content from being used for SGE without disappearing from traditional Google search.
- Since its release, 27.4% of top websites are blocking ChatGPT’s bot, including The New York Times and Washington Post, compared to 6% that are blocking Google-Extended.