“The era of the ‘10 blue links’ is over,” said Sarah Perez in TechCrunch. At its annual I/O conference two weeks ago, Google announced it is overhauling the search box in what the company described as “the biggest change to this entry point to the web in 25 years.” A new “intelligence search box” will respond to longer, more conversational queries and “drop users into AI-powered interactive experiences.” And soon, people will be able to dispatch “information agents” right from Google Search that can keep them abreast of changes for topics they’d otherwise have to search for, such as stock prices and clothing sales. “This shift means that ‘searching the web’ will increasingly be performed by AI agents rather than humans,” and links could soon “become an afterthought.”
Google was “all hype” for the unveiling of this tectonic development in front of an adoring crowd, said Tyler Lacoma in CNET. But for people in the real world, the news was “clear and disturbing.” The threat is existential “not just to developers, but to all online workers,” as well as small businesses who rely on search traffic to get customers. Google’s vision is that you no longer need to venture out onto the internet, said Katie Notopoulos in Business Insider. The internet will be “brought to you in a sanitized form by an intermediary.” That will totally ruin the experience. I love the internet and love searching around it for new things. These promised changes “give me an awful sinking feeling.”
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