Google has become so synonymous with online search that its name has evolved into a verb in its own right. Now, the company is attempting to “revamp its decades-old business model to fit the era of artificial intelligence”, said CNN. In essence, “Google wants to help you google less”.
‘New era’ for search
Instead of generating only the familiar list of blue links, Google Search will give a customised AI-written summary of the topic being researched. This will then open a conversation with AI Mode directly on the main search page, allowing users to ask follow-up questions more naturally.
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This marks a “new era for AI search”, according to a Google blog post, bringing “advanced model capabilities” and “new AI features” to Search. The update will allow users to deploy AI agents “just by asking a question”. The company is also introducing a new intelligent, AI-powered search box, which it describes as Google’s “biggest upgrade in over 25 years”.
Crucially, the shift means that search will become more conversational and personalised, reducing the need to click through to web pages. Increasingly, Google will function more like an assistant than a traditional index of third-party information providers.
‘Radical transformation’
For many people, Google’s search box is the “lobby of the internet”, said Time, so this “radical transformation” signals a major shift in how people use the web. It could “disrupt many industries” that rely on search traffic to attract customers, with news publishers and small businesses particularly vulnerable.
The changes will likely “further decimate” referrals from Google to publishers, which have “already been suffering from declining referrals” because of AI Overviews, said TechCrunch. The trend has already “put some ad-dependent media operations out of business, and now things will likely get worse”.
Using AI-based searching could also erode important skills, said Riley MacLeod on internet news site Aftermath. Google Search is “one of the first and primary places that people experiment with and grow their information-searching skills”. While “spoon-feeding” users AI summaries and “obscuring or bypassing the source of the information” may seem convenient, it risks depriving people of the opportunity to build the “vital information literacy skills” they “need more than ever in an AI-obsessed world”.
For Google, however, the ambition is far larger: to move “closer” to its long-term goal of developing artificial general intelligence – a “theoretical stage of AI” where technology becomes as intelligent as humans across a broad range of subjects, said CNN. The competition is intense, with OpenAI, Meta and others all “racing to be the first to get there”.