Google AI now summarizes entire articles for you

If you find yourself too overwhelmed at the prospect of having to read through a daunting web page, well, salvation is within reach. An experimental Google AI feature will be able to sum it up for you. It’s only been a few months since Google debuted its AI-powered search engine — called Search Generative Experience (SGE) — at Google I/O in May. Already, the company has been making several upgrades to SGE. The latest update now apparently includes a feature that will summarize articles on the web for you.

Google has updated its AI-powered search engine to summarize web articles.

The tech giant already uses SGE to answer search queries and summarize search results, which bypasses the need for users to dig through flurries of search results. But now, according to a blog post from the company, Google is taking SGE further with a new feature that will give users a bullet-point summary of any lengthy web article (via The Verge).

“Our aim is to test how generative AI can help you navigate information online and get to the core of what you’re looking for even faster,” Google said in the statement. 

The company is rolling out the feature to Google Chrome users on Android and iOS devices first. After that, it will reach desktop users.

Google explains that the feature is specifically designed for long-form content. When you’re scrolling on a web page, an option called “Get AI-powered key points” will appear. Clicking this will truncate the article into a summary of its content. 

“We think these capabilities can be particularly helpful when you’re learning something new or complex, but they can also come in handy for other tasks like finding a new recipe or researching a big purchase,” Google said.

Notably, the feature could face resistance from website publishers who want to keep readers on their websites. This is why the SGE while browsing function will only work “on articles that are freely available to the public on the web,” according to the company. Consequently, it will not work for content behind a paywall.

Users who have already opted into SGE automatically have access to the function. Otherwise, you can try it as a standalone function on Google’s Search Labs.