Google's new AI Mode feature hints at the next era of search

A year after introducing generative AI search responses with AI Overviews, Google has announced a new feature that it believes will elevate its AI integration to the next level. Some critics worry the introduction of these new features could signal the end for the larger ecosystem of publishers and websites that rely on the search giant for traffic.

Google continues its march toward AI integration

After a bumpy rollout of AI Overviews, Google made it clear it is still betting on AI as the future of internet search by taking it a step further. The company recently introduced the next phase of AI search tools, featuring AI Mode, which will function like a chatbot to answer users' queries. Users can also ask follow-up questions and use the company's AI system to deliver comprehensive answers. "It's a total reimagining of search," said Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, in a press briefing ahead of the company's I/O conference. People dramatically "changed the nature of how they are interacting with search" during tests of the feature.

With the introduction of AI Mode, Google is "essentially trying to disrupt its traditional search business before upstart AI competitors can disrupt it," said The New York Times. The "search giant" has been wary of the possibility since "declaring a 'code red' two years ago after the arrival of ChatGPT." The turn toward AI also comes amid "mounting antitrust pressures to break up Google's business."

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Google is "rallying its formidable AI efforts" by "releasing a slew of innovations and technologies around it," then "integrating them into products at a breathtaking pace," said Venture Beat. Beyond those "headline-grabbing features," the company has "laid out a bolder ambition: an operating system for the AI age."

The company has continued to "double down" on efforts toward creating a competitive generative artificial model, said Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, during the I/O keynote. While Gemini was already the "best multimodal model," Google is working to extend it to "become what we call a world model," which could "make plans and imagine new experiences by simulating aspects of the world, just like the brain does."

Google is 'burying the web'

From early tests of the feature, AI Mode has "crystallized something about Google's priorities and in particular its relationship to the web," said John Herrman at Intelligencer. AI Overviews already "demoted links" by pushing content from the web "down on the page," and "summarizing its contents for digestion without clicking." Now, AI Mode "all but buries them," not only summarizing their content but "inviting you to explore and expand on those summaries by asking more questions, rather than clicking out." Still, we can't "assume Google knows exactly how this stuff will play out for Google, much less what it will actually mean for millions of websites, and their visitors, if Google stops sending as many people beyond its results pages." Either way Google has signaled it will do "anything to win the AI race," Herrman said. "If that means burying the web, then so be it."

When asked what this might mean for the millions of website owners and publishers that depend on Google to send them traffic, Nick Fox, the head of Google's knowledge and information products, remained convinced that the rise of AI does not signal the end of the open web. "I deeply believe this is an expansionary moment," he said to The Verge. The "death of the web has been 25 years coming," and it has yet to happen. "The web is growing."

Publishers remain unswayed by the company's reassurances. In a statement responding to the unveiling of AI Mode, the News/Media Alliance, the trade association backing some of the biggest news publishers, said the new feature is "depriving" publishers of both traffic and revenue. Links were the "last redeeming quality of search that gave publishers traffic and revenue," said Danielle Coffey, the CEO and president of News/Media Alliance, in the statement. Now Google "takes content by force and uses it with no return, the definition of theft." She called on the Department of Justice to "prevent continued domination of the internet by one company."