Google SGE: A new way to search, teach, and resist

Abstract

In May 2023, amidst the fanfare and outcries over ChatGPT, Google quietly rolled out early access to new features in Search Labs, a user-based experimental testing ground for Search Generative Experience (SGE). Google pitches SGE as a new way of searching that uses generative artificial intelligence (AI) to “understand a topic faster, uncover new viewpoints and insights, and get things done more easily,” but later adds that it also helps make “complex purchase decisions faster and much easier.”2 Interested users can simply tap the Labs icon in Google Chrome or a Google search on an Android device to sign up. Opting in gives Google the right to collect and analyze your usage, queries, and location for development and machine learning.