G
GEO Toolbox

AI Search Surfaces

Google SGE

Also: Search Generative Experience, SGE

Google SGE (Search Generative Experience) was the experimental name for Google's AI-generated answers in Search, launched in Labs in 2023. It graduated and was rebranded as AI Overviews, which rolled out broadly in May 2024, so SGE is now the retired label for the same surface.

Updated

SGE began as a Search Labs experiment in 2023, generating a summarized answer above the classic results. After testing, Google rebranded it and rolled it out as AI Overviews for general availability, starting in the US in May 2024.

If you still see "SGE" in older guides, read it as AI Overviews. The optimization goal is unchanged: be one of the sources the overview cites, which depends on clear, helpful content rather than any special markup.