Latest news with #Overviews
Hindustan Times
6 days ago
- Hindustan Times
Google Search launches ‘Audio Overviews' for hands-free, quick search result summaries
Google has introduced a new feature in its search engine called Audio Overviews, designed to offer users spoken summaries of search results. This feature builds on Google's recent efforts to integrate artificial intelligence into its platform, which aims to offer an alternative way to access information. Audio Overviews use AI technology from Google's latest Gemini models to create brief, conversational audio summaries which last between 30 and 45 seconds. These summaries resemble a podcast-style explanation of the search topic. Alongside the audio, the interface displays relevant web pages, allowing users to explore the topic further or verify facts. Also read: Apple to launch major Siri AI upgrade with iOS 26.4 by March 2026 Audio Overviews first appeared in Google's NotebookLM tool last year. Now, powered by the latest Gemini AI models, this feature is available through Google Labs, an experimental space where users can test upcoming Search capabilities. Users interested in trying Audio Overviews can visit to opt into the experiment. However, Google will not generate audio for every search but will limit the feature to queries where it believes the audio format will add value. Also read: Microsoft cancels Xbox handheld, but teases more thrilling portable gaming experience with Asus ROG Ally For example, if a user searches for 'how do mobile phone's telephoto camera works,' a 'Generate Audio Overview' button will appear after scrolling down the results page. Once clicked, the system takes up to 40 seconds to create the audio clip. The audio player offers basic controls including play/pause, volume adjustment, and a mute toggle. Furthermore, users can also change playback speed from 0.25x to 2x. Also read: Nintendo sells record 3.5 million Switch 2 consoles in four days The audio presentation features two AI voices interacting to explain the search topic, similar to Google's NotebookLM feature launched last year. The Audio Overviews function works on both mobile devices and desktop computers, but is currently limited to users in the U.S. Google says this feature aims to offer a hands-free and convenient method to absorb information, especially useful for multitasking or for those who prefer listening over reading.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Yahoo
How to turn off Google's AI Overviews in web searches
Google's AI Overviews do not save me time. For one, I work for a tech blog and am therefore professionally curious as to whether or not the generated answers are correct, so I spend a few ticks figuring that out. (Answer: Sometimes, but not always!) Then things get existential as I contemplate how long a self-cannibalizing system can sustain itself — if the AI gives answers pulled from websites that survive on visits from readers, what happens when no one visits those sites because AI cribbed the answer? Will I still get to write for websites if websites die from traffic starvation? It's a lot to think about when all I want is TSA's latest lithium-ion battery regulations. Curiously (and unhelpfully) the first result when you Google 'How to turn off AI Overviews in Chrome' doesn't actually answer the question. The entry, from Google Support, discusses turning the feature off back when AI Overviews were experimental and handled through Google Labs. Navigate a little further down that page and you'll see: Note: Turning off 'AI Overviews and more' in Search Labs will not disable all AI Overviews in Search. AI Overviews are part of Google Search like other features, such as knowledge panels, and can't be turned off. Thankfully, I work with intelligent people and one of them supplied me with a simple method of ensuring each search performed in a Chrome browser bypasses the AI Overview and uses results from the Web tab only. Here's how you too can avoid wasted time (and energy) so you can search like it's 2024. Click the three dots in the upper right corner of your Chrome browser Go to Settings > Search engine > Manage search engines and search Under Site search, click the Add button Enter Name: Google/Web Enter Shortcut: Enter URL: {google:baseURL}search?udm=14&q=%s Click Add Then, (hat tip to Tom's Hardware for helping me figure this bit out) set the search type to default by clicking the three dots next to the shortcut you just created and clicking Make default. Now, go Google 'the best laptop power banks' and click on the Engadget entry (usually one to four results down) and spend a few moments looking at the ads (and the picture of my desk) before you move on so I can still have a job in 2026. In that same Tom's Hardware article, Avram Piltch links to the extension he built, which is a super easy way to hide the AI Overviews from sight. It'll still generate the response, you just won't see it. I prefer the Web method above, to avoid any unnecessary machine processing on my behalf, but the extension is easier and keeps you on the familiar 'All' search results tab with knowledge panels, video results and the like. To turn off the AI Overview for Chrome on your phone, I'll direct you to the fine folks at tenbluelinks. Just open the link in your phone's browser and follow the steps for Android or iOS.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Google's AI Is Actively Destroying the News Media
Google's pivot to AI-powered search is proving disastrous for the digital news media landscape. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the company's latest tools, including its wildly hallucinating AI Overviews and chatbot-style AI Mode, are causing the traffic being sent to publishers to plummet as users no longer feel the need to click through to the actual source of information, cutting already-slammed journalists off from ad revenue and subscriptions. It's an existential threat. News publications, already gutted by the internet, have been hit hard as they try to adapt to a post-organic-search world. Per the WSJ, search traffic to Business Insider's media empire fell by a whopping 55 percent between April 2022 and April 2025. Last month, the company cut roughly 21 percent of its staff, with CEO Barbara Peng noting that it had to "endure extreme traffic drops outside of our control." How to respond to this existential threat remains a major point of contention. "Google is shifting from being a search engine to an answer engine," The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson told the WSJ. "We have to develop new strategies." Some publications, like the New York Times, are taking legal action, with the newspaper suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. It's a thorny debate, with publishers accusing the AI industry of exploiting their content without ever fairly remunerated. Plummeting traffic due to AI-enhanced search on Google is only exacerbating the tension. Google is under threat from AI itself. Apple executive Eddy Cue admitted in federal court earlier this year that Google searches in the company's Safari browser had fallen for the first time in 20 years, indicating the end of traditional search as we know it could be nigh. Confusingly, Google has since disputed the claim and has remained adamant that its number of total searches is still going up — while going all-in on its glitchy AI products. "This is the moment that propels us forward in our ability to achieve our mission and really deliver a transformed search experience for users," Google's head of knowledge and information division Nick Fox told Adweek. The digital media landscape and Google are now caught in an unfortunate race to the bottom. The tech giant's search and AI features rely on a steady stream of news and original content. But by cutting the creators of that material out of a once lucrative organic search-driven revenue source, that stream could soon be reduced to a trickle, if not an incestuous swamp of AI-generated nonsense. Well-established outlets will likely weather the storm better. Research revealed last week that Google's AI Overviews favors major news outlets, while smaller publications struggle for visibility. Meanwhile, the media industry has no other option but to look for new business models in light of an existential threat. Legal challenges to Google's indiscriminate scraping of copyrighted materials are likely to continue to crop up as well. "Links were the last redeeming quality of search that gave publishers traffic and revenue," said trade association News/Media Alliance CEO Danielle Coffey in a statement last month, following Google's announcement of its AI Mode feature. "Now Google just takes content by force and uses it with no return, the definition of theft." More on Google's AI: "You Can't Lick a Badger Twice": Google's AI Is Making Up Explanations for Nonexistent Folksy Sayings
Engadget
13-06-2025
- Engadget
How to turn off Google's AI Overviews in web searches
Google's AI Overviews do not save me time. For one, I work for a tech blog and am therefore professionally curious as to whether or not the generated answers are correct, so I spend a few ticks figuring that out. (Answer: Sometimes, but not always!) Then things get existential as I contemplate how long a self-cannibalizing system can sustain itself — if the AI gives answers pulled from websites that survive on visits from readers, what happens when no one visits those sites because AI cribbed the answer? Will I still get to write for websites if websites die from traffic starvation? It's a lot to think about when all I want is TSA's latest lithium-ion battery regulations. Curiously (and unhelpfully) the first result when you Google 'How to turn off AI Overviews in Chrome' doesn't actually answer the question. The entry, from Google Support, discusses turning the feature off back when AI Overviews were experimental and handled through Google Labs. Navigate a little further down that page and you'll see: Note: Turning off 'AI Overviews and more' in Search Labs will not disable all AI Overviews in Search. AI Overviews are part of Google Search like other features, such as knowledge panels, and can't be turned off. Thankfully, I work with intelligent people and one of them supplied me with a simple method of ensuring each search performed in a Chrome browser bypasses the AI Overview and uses results from the Web tab only. Here's how you too can avoid wasted time (and energy) so you can search like it's 2024. Click the three dots in the upper right corner of your Chrome browser Go to Settings > Search engine > Manage search engines and search Under Site search, click the Add button Enter Name: Google/Web Enter Shortcut: Enter URL: {google:baseURL}search?udm=14&q=%s Click Add Then, (hat tip to Tom's Hardware for helping me figure this bit out) set the search type to default by clicking the three dots next to the shortcut you just created and clicking Make default. Now, go Google 'the best laptop power banks' and click on the Engadget entry (usually one to four results down) and spend a few moments looking at the ads (and the picture of my desk) before you move on so I can still have a job in 2026. In that same Tom's Hardware article, Avram Piltch links to the extension he built, which is a super easy way to hide the AI Overviews from sight. It'll still generate the response, you just won't see it. I prefer the Web method above, to avoid any unnecessary machine processing on my behalf, but the extension is easier and keeps you on the familiar 'All' search results tab with knowledge panels, video results and the like. To turn off the AI Overview for Chrome on your phone, I'll direct you to the fine folks at tenbluelinks. Just open the link in your phone's browser and follow the steps for Android or iOS.
Engadget
20-05-2025
- Business
- Engadget
1.5 billion people see Google's AI Overviews each month
Google just touted some big numbers regarding its AI Overviews feature during its I/O conference. On the stage, company CEO Sundar Pichai said that the service has 1.5 billion monthly users. That's around 18 percent of the total human population of planet Earth, give or take. For the remaining 82 percent of humanity, AI Overviews are those little recaps that appear at the top of Google queries. These primarily appear when the search engine is asked a question, with the company saying they only show up for more complex questions, where the systems recognize that they're helpful beyond what the rest of the results page offers. We asked the company what that 1.5 billion number actually means, being how the recaps spawn automatically. Google responded by saying the number is a measure of people who have seen AI Overviews in their results. It also noted that the overwhelming majority of these users engage with the service in some meaningful way. The company continued by saying that users are interacting with it, which leads them to "search more often." Google says that Overviews are driving a 10 percent increase in search engine usage, with regard to the types of queries that show AI-generated results. The biggest markets for this feature are the US and India. Back in October, Google pledged to bring the platform to 100 new countries and hoped to one-day reach one billion users per month. It looks like the company has sailed past that. The company has also been busy bringing it to even more regions. All told, Overviews is available in more than 200 countries and in 40 languages. It's even been testing a similar service for YouTube. Of course, this is AI. The Overviews feature may be inching toward omnipresence, but that doesn't mean it's always correct. The service has been known to make stuff up, get things wrong or just act plain goofy.
