We Just Tested the New Search Labs: Here’s Our Thoughts

Are you experimenting with AI and wondering how to make it work for your community?

Google announced its Search Labs initiative on May 10, 2023, at the Google I/O conference, promising to roll-out more experiences to test and offer feedback about.

After joining a brief wait list, we gave Search Labs a spin to see what it was like.

We were also determined to stay open-minded, considering we were kind of “meh” about Bard (Google’s answer to Chat GPT).

Here’s what we thought and how it could help your community.

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Search Generative Experience

SGE, or Search Generative Experience, promises to give a faster, easier way to search with AI-powered overviews with helpful info and follow-ups.

👉 We clicked: “Try an Example and immediately got a prompt that let us know SGE would collect and store data in a manner not associated with our Google account and “may be read, processed, or annotated by human reviewers to help with quality and improve our products. You can turn off SGE anytime.”

👉 SGE also let us know that Generative AI is experimental technology used for informational purposes and not for professional advice.

We figured we were safe here, so asked SGE to give us "expert multifamily marketing ideas 2023" to see what it would come up with.

Most of the results were incredibly generic, like using social media advertisers.

It did suggest staging a studio apartment and posting the images, which piqued some interest.

It's always good to show prospective renters what's possible if they're going to live in small living conditions.

We're also fans of optimizing your Google My Business listing the right way, but there’s still nothing new here. Maybe it's because we asked for "ideas".

We changed it up and asked for “strategies this time, and it was a little more detailed.

Still.. The results are just a laundry list of ideas that you can find almost anywhere. Email marketing? Really?

There’s more prompts as you move through the SGE step, but they are still a basic round-up of ideas.

You can also scroll below your SGE results to see the usual Google results that normally pop up.

Code Tips

Next, we tried code tips.

We'll be totally honest. We just didn't get the value of this experience. It opened up this screen.

If you’re just looking for super quick coding tips, this will get you there.

This Google Search Labs feature does help quickly find the answers and lay it out in a clear, concise way, which could make building your multifamily website easier.

But so did Googling for coding tips the “old-fashioned” way.

Add to Sheets

This experience focuses on making it easier to add search results to your sheets without the need to copy and paste.

We clicked the "Start Planning" prompt from the Search Labs Console and got some underrated summer travel ideas.

We decided to mix it up and ask for “underrated multifamily marketing ideas.”

It gave us some generic results, but didn’t actually see any info about adding this to our sheets.

👉 After going back to the console to re-read the directions, we saw that it said to hover over the results and most of those results will add to Sheets.

👉 We never could get this functionality to work on any result, despite experimenting with everything from front travel to marketing ideas.

But accordingly to Search Labs, here’s what it’s supposed to look like:

Of all the promised functionality of Search Labs, Sheets seemed like it could be the most useful and streamline some aspects of collecting data.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t perform the way it's supposed to.

Final Thoughts on Search Labs

Okay, so final thoughts.

We weren’t super impressed with Google Search Labs, but there is a caveat here.

Their goal is to collect feedback so Google can make changes, which will give you a prompt to do so.

They also don't promise the world with Search Labs or revolutionary AI-fed results.

Google themselves say, “Search Labs allows people to experiment with early-stage Google Search experiences, which include AI, and share their feedback.”

The overall search results and functionality felt generic but it did feel streamlined and moved faster.

So if you’re looking for broad overviews and a quick roundup of info, Search Labs definitely gets you there.

Our goal at Flair is to dig into streamlining processes, uncovering new ideas, gathering valuable info, and real-world examples and data.

Maybe we’ve consumed too much content that AI is supposed to revolutionize everything in its path. 🤷

👉 We’re not suggesting Search Labs and AI won’t roll-out revolutionary features when it comes to content and search results.

👉 We’re just saying Google Search Labs fell short of what was expected from AI functionality.

👉 We’ll still play around with AI, but we’re more interested in coming up with revolutionary ideas and not just functionality.

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