Hands-on with Google’s new Search Generative Experience

Google opened access to its new Search Generative Experience and today – and our own Barry Schwartz is one of the first to gain access.

Although he had to head offline for the holiday of Shavuot, he was able to share several tweets with images from his early testing. I’ve compiled most of those in this article so you can get an early look at the experiment that is Google SGE.

The Google welcome email

It’s Barry’s turn to try Search Labs! This is the “you’re in” email Google sent.

Getting started

Yes, we’re ready to get started experimenting with Search Labs.

But first you’ll need to agree after reading this crazy long SGE Privacy Notice:

Search [when does Shavous start?]

Google didn’t show the time, but Barry likes how you can expand the answers.

Also, look at all those snackable organic/free links you can click on.

Barry called the follow-up answers “pretty good”:

Search [where to get a haircut near me]

Onto local search. We’ve got a 5 pack:

And a 3 pack:

Search [where can I learn about SEO]

Where can you learn SEO? Well… here’s what you get from Google:

Search: [who writes at Search Engine Land?]

Some “how to” queries

How do we tie shoes or change tires, Google?

Some Your Money, Your Life queries

Some have AI-generated answers, and some do not, as Google said would be the case:

Mobile interface

Here are a couple of tweets from Barry with GIFs showing off the SGE on mobile.

Editor’s note: I will update this article later with more screenshots. Until then, you can find a lot more searches around politics, shopping, sports and more in Barry’s Twitter thread, which you can find here.