Google Expands AI Search to 120 New Countries, Skips Canada

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