Alphabet's Google said on Wednesday it introduced generative artificial intelligence to its Search tool for users in India and Japan that will show text or visual results to prompts, including summaries.

The feature, which was first launched only in the United States, was rolled out this week in the two countries, and users will have the choice to opt in for it.

Japanese users will be able to use the feature in their local languages, while it will be available in English and Hindi in India.

Google's search feature is meant to be used for seeking information, such as locating something to purchase. It is different from its chatbot Bard, which has a persona that can hold human-like conversations to, for instance, generate software code.

Google's AI search competes with Microsoft's Bing.

(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru and Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)