Google Search pauses AI-generated images within AI Overviews

Google has paused an experiment within Google Search to create AI-generated images within AI Overviews for recipe results. Robby Stein, VP of Product at Google, replied to this test minutes ago saying, “This was a small experiment we’re no longer running.”

What was the experiment. As I covered on Friday, Google was testing showing AI-generated images in AI Overviews for recipe results. The AI-generated image summarized how to cook the dish, from prep to finish. This was spotted by the folks over at Inspired Taste who wrote on X, “This AIO is directly trying to replace creators who buy groceries for testing, photography, and filming recipe videos. We also have conversations with our visitors who have questions. We are doing all of the work and Google is directly trying to over simplify everything and replace us with AIOs like this. There is also risk that a searcher might think that one of the websites cited in the AIO did the illustrations. It is very confusing and extremely oversimplified.”

What it looked like. Here are some screenshots of this in action:

Here are more:

Google dropped the experiment. Robby Stein from Google said on X, “This was a small experiment we’re no longer running.”

He added that “this is not the Nano Banana feature we announced in July, which only triggers when users explicitly ask to generate an image.” That is this story, where Google said they would allow users to create AI-generated images in AI Overviews.

Why we care. Not only would this feature result in a drop in traffic to the publishers of these recipes, it might also lead to the recipe being followed incorrectly and lead to a bad taste in more than one way.

Adam from Inspired Taste replied to the experiment being dropped saying, “We are extremely happy to hear that this experiment is no longer running.”