Google has not revealed a timeline for the full rollout of its Google Search Generative Experience (SGE). What we do know is that the company has started testing SGE in the wild with a small group of U.S. users, and it appears to have gone live today.

However, there’s no official word yet on when SGE and AI overviews will become available to all users across the U.S. and other regions.

Google I/O on May 14. Rumors are floating that Google might choose May 14—the date of the Google I/O keynote—as the launch day for SGE, at least in the U.S. and possibly other areas, while CEO Sundar Pichai takes the stage.

It would make sense to debut SGE at I/O, as it’s Google’s most significant annual event.

Still, Google hasn’t confirmed—publicly or privately—that SGE will ever fully roll out, let alone on a specific date. In fact, we’ve had to correct similar rumors before. There was once an internal target set for December 2023, but that deadline came and went without a launch.

How could SGE be launched. If Google does decide to proceed with launching SGE soon, I believe they’ll aim to do so in a way that protects their search ad revenue. It’s likely that SGE would initially appear only on search results pages that don’t display ads.

This makes sense since Google has noted that most daily searches don’t show any ads anyway. Additionally, AI-generated answers tend to work best for longer-tail queries, which often lack ads to begin with.

Google must be cautious about how the new SGE interface affects clicks on search ads, which remain their primary source of income. By limiting SGE to queries without ads, they could avoid risking revenue loss.

Also, expect Google to potentially avoid showing AI overviews for politically or otherwise sensitive topics.

Currently, there are many examples where SGE’s AI answers fall short or look unflattering. This reminds me of the early days of featured snippets, where plenty of problematic examples emerged.

If Google can find a technical solution to restrict AI overviews from these categories, then a broader launch becomes more feasible.

Will users be able to opt out. At the moment, SGE exists as a Labs feature that users can toggle on or off. But now that real-world testing has begun, those selected for the test have no option to opt out.

Today, I noticed complaints from users who are part of this live test and want to disable SGE but can't.

Google SGE AI overviews on by default for some US based test users is now live – Google told us it would happen and now I am seeing complaints from users about it – older story updated at http://www.miracleart.cn/link/9da6afb4840df51ceee399e5dea42598 pic.twitter.com/lpCkYwWSIZ

— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) March 28, 2024

Why this matters. Many professionals are anxious about the potential impact of a full SGE rollout. Advertisers worry about how it may affect click-through rates and conversions. Publishers are concerned about changes to organic traffic patterns once SGE goes live. Content creators fear that Google could repurpose their content into AI-generated answers, giving them no direct benefit or site impressions.

Google has stated that it continues to focus on methods that drive valuable traffic to publishers’ websites. They also claim that SGE now includes more links to external sites than before, offering new ways for content to be discovered. But whether users actually follow those links remains unclear.

Stay tuned—we’ll share updates on SGE’s launch timing, scope, and format as soon as more information surfaces.

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