Glossary entry
Search Generative Experience (SGE) / AI Overviews
Also known as: SGE, AI Overviews, Google AI Overviews
Google's brand for its generative-search feature that appears above traditional search results in Google. Originally labelled SGE in 2023, rebranded to AI Overviews in 2024.
Search Generative Experience (SGE) is Google's original product name (announced May 2023) for the generative-AI panel that appears at the top of Google search results for certain queries. In May 2024, Google rebranded the feature to AI Overviews and rolled it out to general availability in the US. The current branding is "AI Overviews"; "SGE" persists in the trade press and in academic literature.
Practically:
- AI Overviews appear above blue-link results for ~30% of US English queries (Q1 2026 baseline).
- They synthesise an answer from multiple sources and link to those sources in a sidebar.
- Their citation behaviour differs from ChatGPT and Perplexity in three meaningful ways: heavier weighting of Google's authority signals, heavier representation of YouTube and Reddit, faster decay of fresh sources.
GEO advice that ignores the specifics of AI Overviews is incomplete. See: How ChatGPT Decides Which Source to Cite (which covers AI Overviews in its cross-model comparison).