Google AI Search Impact
Source: nymag.com
Save this article to read it later. Find this story in your account’s‘Saved for Later’section. By now, there’s a good chance you’ve encounteredGoogle’sAI Overviews, possibly thousands of times. Appearing as blurbs at the top of search results, they attempt to address what you're looking for before you scroll, providing answers or information from websites you might not visit otherwise. The feature was officially launched at Google’s developer conference last year and had been in testing before that. At this year’s conference, it was called “one of the most successful launches in Search in the past decade.” Google put AI summaries before everything else, suggesting that users try this first.
This year’s conference also presented “AI Mode,” which had also been in beta testing. It will appear as an option for users and is a complete replacement for regular search, not just an extra module. Google describes it as its “most powerful AI search, with more advanced reasoning and multimodality, and the ability to go deeper through follow-up questions and helpful links to the web,” also stating it can break down questions and issue multiple queries. It is similar to AI-first chatbots with search functions and is intended for greater use than just a small tab. According to Google, features and capabilities will be moved from AI Mode into the core Search experience as feedback is gathered.
AI Mode has been in testing for some months and, in some ways, seems less radical than expected. It resembles initial demos of AI search tools and responds to many questions with clear answers. It sometimes answers in plain language, also creating lists and using familiar modules, especially for shopping-related questions, making it feel like search. It is now available for anyone to try. AI Mode highlighted Google’s priorities and its connection to the web, from which it has gained value. AI Overviews moved links lower on the page, summarizing content without requiring clicks. AI Mode goes further by summarizing content within Google’s product and encouraging users to ask more questions instead of clicking on links.
Links are often used for backup and sourcing, included as footnotes instead of primary destinations. This is common with AI search tools. Automation means that companies such as OpenAI and Google are mechanizing some of the work involved in using search tools, reducing the need for users to leave their platforms. This offers different ways to interact with information, such as summarization and regeneration, but raises the question of where the data needed to continue working well will come from.
When Microsoft and Google presented their first neo-search mockups, which are similar to today’s AI Mode, it revealed a problem: search engines provide access to the web and have a relationship with content creators. A Google that summarizes websites without sending people to them could harm that relationship and many websites, including those used for model training.
AI Overviews and AI Mode provide clean answers and contrast with regular Google search results, which contain optimized content designed for Google’s ranking algorithms and advertising. AI Mode feels separate from that ecosystem and offers a textual alternative to Google’s links that resemble ads. Google is working on ads for Overviews and AI Mode. Google is concealing the material that fuels it by demoting links as it uses them for abstraction. Google may keep attention and monetize it, no longer needing to send people elsewhere, but this could starve the web of data. The head of search stated that the search results page was a construct.
Google may consider the fate of the web as less important than winning the AI race. The future of Google search may resemble AI Overviews more than AI Mode, using AI-generated content to sustain advertising. However, it is uncertain how this will affect websites and their visitors if Google reduces traffic to external pages. Google’s push into generative AI is driven by fear, faith, and the actions of competitors with less investment in the web.
A new economy may emerge around AI tools, or companies like OpenAI and Google may create more licensing deals. This automation could collapse the marketplace supported by search, using training data to achieve more with less. Google’s signals suggest it will prioritize winning the AI race, even if it means impacting the web.