Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) offers AI-generated summaries that amalgamate the most important information for user queries. The company has announced this feature has now expanded to 120 new countries, but Canada isn’t one of them.
Following successful implementations in the U.S., India, and Japan, the technology has received overwhelmingly positive feedback says Google. Now, over 120 countries and territories and support for four new languages is rolling out, including Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa.
The AI search now supports Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, and Indonesian, adding to a total of support for seven languages.
Search Labs, a platform for trialing early-stage search experiments, is now accessible globally via the Google app on Android and iOS, as well as on Chrome desktop. Users can enable the SGE experiment within Search Labs to experience the new features.
One of the enhancements being tested is an improved method for users to ask follow-up questions directly from the search results page. This feature aims to create a more intuitive information-seeking process, allowing users to view previous queries and results, including ads, as they dive deeper into a topic.
Additionally, the search experience will soon include AI-powered translation assistance to resolve ambiguities in language translation.
Lastly, the search engine is set to provide interactive definitions for specialized terms, particularly in coding and health-related searches. This feature will enable users to access quick definitions and related imagery by hovering over highlighted terms.
These updates, starting with the U.S. and rolling out in English initially, will provide users with a more nuanced and efficient search experience. Further expansions to cover more countries and languages are planned for the near future. Canada remains on the outside looking in to this new tech, like China, Russia and North Korea.
Google indicated in May that following significant progress in current engagements, it plans to broaden the reach of Bard to additional countries and languages. While specific plans for Bard’s expansion into Canada are not yet complete, Google has committed to sharing updates when they are ready. Canada continues to wait for new tech like Google’s Pixel Fold smartphone.
The delayed introduction of Google Bard in Canada may not be unexpected, given rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT is under investigation by the federal government over privacy concerns
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That is not a bad thing.
“Canada remains on the outside looking in to this new tech, like China, Russia and North Korea”. Putting Canada together with these countries indicates certain implicit bias in the light of the fact that Search Labs is also unavailable in countries like Australia, Germany or Sweden – not exactly pariah states.
While visiting Boston recently I thought I’d try Bard out. So I asked it why it’s not offered in Canada:
Why are you not available in Canada?
I am not available in Canada yet because Google is still working with regulators in that country to ensure that I comply with local laws and regulations. Google has said that it is committed to being a good partner to regulators and that it is working to bring me to Canada as soon as possible.
Specifically, Google has cited the Online News Act as a reason for the delay in making Bard available in Canada. The Online News Act is a new law that requires Google and other online platforms to pay news publishers for the use of their content. Google has said that it is still reviewing the law and that it is not yet clear how it will comply with it.
I hope that I will be available in Canada soon. In the meantime, you can still access me through a VPN. A VPN is a service that encrypts your traffic and routes it through a server in another country. This allows you to bypass geo-restrictions and access websites and services that are not available in your own country.
I hope this answers your question.