The very basic meaning of what it means to ” Google” something – typing in keywords and sifting through links, images and information snippets is nearly behind us, according to Google.
The search giant laid out its vision for the future of searching the web on Tuesday, introducing a flurry of updates that aim to shift Google’s ubiquitous search engine from being a box for processing keywords to a system of “digital agents” that can crawl the web and answer questions based on a person’s real-world surroundings, tastes and preferences. Google’s AI push comes as publishers – particularly independent ones – have already raised concerns about how the prominence of AI-generated answers could threaten their businesses.
The announcements, made during the company’s annual developer conference, underscore that Google’s most important business is facing more competition than ever. Chatbots like ChatGPT and AI-fueled search engines such as Perplexity present an alternative way to find information and get things done – two tasks firmly at the center of Google’s core business. The newly announced tools can be seen as an effort to prove its nearly 30-year-old search engine isn’t losing relevance in the AI era.
“What all this progress tells me is that we are now entering a new phase of the AI platform shift, where decades of research are now becoming reality for people, businesses and communities all over the world,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet, said in a press briefing ahead of the conference.
‘AI Mode’
Google is broadening AI Mode, previously only available to those who signed up to test early features through its Labs program, to all US users through the Google app. It’s a step beyond AI Overviews, the AI-generated answers consumers see at the top of results.
The primary difference between AI Mode and a standard Google search is the way it processes queries. Instead of just looking at the whole question, AI Mode breaks queries down into subtopics and generates additional searches based on those subtopics to provide a more specific answer. Google says AI Mode will soon draw on a person’s search history to further personalize answers, and users will also be able to link it to other Google apps, like Gmail.
Beyond how it processes questions, AI Mode is expected to offer two key new ways of searching: one that it claims will handle tasks on a user’s behalf, and another that lets them show Google their surroundings using their phone’s camera. Although AI Mode is now generally available in the US, these two specific features will still require users to sign up for Labs.
Google’s Project Mariner technology, which the company announced as a research prototype last year, will be able to accomplish certain tasks on a person’s behalf and answer questions that usually require multiple steps, the company claims. For example, one could ask a question such as “Find two affordable tickets for this Sunday’s Reds game in the lower level,” and Google will search for tickets, analyze options and pricing, fill out forms autonomously and then pull up tickets that match the user’s criteria.
It will initially be available for buying tickets, making restaurant reservations and booking local appointments through services such as Ticketmaster, StubHub, Resy and Vagaro, and will come to the Labs section of the Google app in the coming months.
