Announced at Google’s annual developers conference this week in California, the media company will begin displaying AI-powered answers to users via its namesake search engine.
The revamped search engine will allow users to see periodic AI-generated overviews at the top of the results page. The overviews will only emerge when Google’s tech determines whether or not it is the fastest and most efficient way to answer users’ questions. Otherwise, people will continue to see links to traditional Google websites and ads for simple searches such as store recommendations or weather forecasts. The feature will begin testing in the U.S. this week, but the company plans to introduce it in other parts of the world later this year.
Google began testing the AI summaries with a small group of selected users a year ago, and found that the tech caused people to do more searches because they could find more answers to questions that were previously too complex, according to the company.
However, the rollout will be closely watched for how it affects Google’s advertising sales, which generated $175 billion in revenue last year alone. Online publishers that rely on the company’s search engine for traffic (from large media outlets to entrepreneurs and startups) could be affected if the AI summaries are so informative that they lead to fewer clicks on website links that will continue to appear at the bottom of the results page. The new search engine also comes at a time when publishers are already suffering from a massive drop in search traffic and revenue.
“We’ve known this was coming for a while now ever since they announced Bard last year. We’ve also seen this type of zero click behaviour, albeit maybe at smaller scale, with their Featured Snippets, since 2016. Our opinion is that this is a natural progression for Google as they have to adapt and compete vs. changing behaviours and new competitors like ChatGPT and OpenAI who are growing incredibly fast,” Chuck Lapointe, CEO at publisher Narcity Media Group, tells MiC. “Publishers will see a negative consequence, as their traffic referral declines, but it’s not something I think publishers in general are too surprised with. The moment is now to embrace your first party data strategy.”
Google has said that it’s working to allay any fears. “With AI overviews, people are visiting a greater diversity of websites for help with more complex questions. And we see that the links included in AI overviews get more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing for that query,” wrote Liz Reid, VP head of global search at Google, in a company blog post. “As we expand this experience, we’ll continue to focus on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators. As always, ads will continue to appear in dedicated slots throughout the page, with clear labeling to distinguish between organic and sponsored results.”
“Rather than breaking your question into multiple searches, you can ask your most complex questions, with all the nuances and caveats you have in mind, all in one go,” Reid added. “[And] thanks to advancements in video understanding, we’re able to take visual search to a whole new level, with the ability to ask questions with video.”
Reid uses the example of a record player that isn’t working well. “Searching with video saves you the time and trouble of finding the right words to describe this issue, and you’ll get an AI overview with steps and resources to troubleshoot,” she said.
In addition to announcing its new search engine, Google used its marquee conference to show other AI advances. The company announced more sophisticated analytics powered by Gemini, and smarter assistants such as Astra, which will be able to understand, explain and remember things shown through a smartphone’s camera lens.
With files from Greg Hudson
