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In recent months, it has been impossible to discuss anything related to Google search and SEO without the mention of Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, it appears that Google’s Search Generative Experience – better known as SGE – is being slowly retracted from the market.

To understand why Google is making this decision, we first need to review the purpose of SGE and its place in the AI market. Then, we can better understand why it appears Google has begun the retraction process for such a prominent service offering and discuss the ramifications such a decision may have on the industry as a whole.

SGE’s Shrinking Digital Footprint

SGE was originally released as an experimental feature in Google Labs. Google invested a lot of money, research, and development to ensure that this product could compete with other popular AI services such as ChatGPT and New Bing. Google’s new AI feature was expected to disrupt search engine result pages, better known as SERPs.

While predictions about SGE disrupting SERPs were accurate, the results may not have been as positive as expected. When originally introduced, SGE had a largely positive reception from the public. Google was majorly marketing its product as the future of search and showing off the incredible capabilities of this new technology.

However, that positive reception did not last for long. While SGE was good at generating responses, those responses were often of mixed quality. As more people used the platform, the public perception of AI-assisted search engines began to drop. Users began viewing AI-generated results as less trustworthy than just visiting the top links provided by Google’s regular search algorithm functions.

Google’s Retraction of SGE

In response to the shift in public opinion, Google plans to retract their product’s access for regular consumers. SGE will be made unavailable for those in the United States by December 2023. India-based users will have more time with SGE, with the program planned to be closed by February 2024. This retraction may signify that Google is reassessing the viability of the AI market.

Considering Google is one of the leading tech companies globally, their retraction may indicate that Google is reassessing how they can best implement AI into their search engine. Since Google is seen as an industry leader, its decision to rescind access to SGE may have ripple effects across AI- and search-related industries.

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