Google is changing the way search results are displayed, including conversations with artificial intelligence, and more short videos and social media posts. This is a departure from the website results list that has made Google the dominant search engine for decades.
Google is changing the way search results are displayed, including conversations with artificial intelligence, and more short videos and social media posts. This is a departure from the website results list that has made Google the dominant search engine for decades.
This change represents a response to major changes in how people access information on the internet, including the emergence of AI bots like ChatGPT. It will move the service away from its traditional format, informally known as “10 blue links,” according to company documents and people familiar with the matter.
This change represents a response to major changes in how people access information on the internet, including the emergence of AI bots like ChatGPT. It will move the service away from its traditional format, informally known as “10 blue links,” according to company documents and people familiar with the matter.
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According to the document, Google plans to make its search engine more “visual, easy-to-eat, personal and human,” with a focus on serving young people around the world. increase. According to the documentation, it’s the same way it’s been historically done on the website.
At this week’s annual I/O developer conference, the search giant is expected to announce a new feature that will allow users to converse with artificial intelligence programs (a project codenamed “Magi”). another official said. matter.
Alphabet-owned Google has been making minimal tweaks to the look and feel of search for years. This bolsters its advertising business, which generated more than $162 billion in revenue last year. However, that is changing with the rapid rise of AI chatbots and short-video apps like TikTok, both of which are attracting the attention of younger users.
According to an internal reference document outlining the company’s strategy to make changes to its search engine this year, Google plans to focus more on answering queries that traditional web search results can’t easily answer.
Google Search visitors may be asked more often to ask follow-up questions or swipe through visuals such as TikTok videos, depending on their query.
The company is already moving toward integrating some online forum posts and short videos into its search results, according to internal documents and people familiar with the matter, but plans to emphasize such content more in the future. intend to do something.
Google executives have stressed to employees that the number of active websites has plateaued in recent years, according to people familiar with the discussion. Internet users are increasingly turning to other apps for information on everything from popular local restaurants to productivity tips.
“More than answers, we help you when you don’t have the right answers,” a Google executive said in a statement.
A Google spokesperson said search has always been “a highly dynamic and rapidly evolving field” and has been focused on a long-term approach to transforming the service, including the integration of AI and visual capabilities. increase.
“As search evolves, providing quality information and supporting a healthy and open web will remain core to our approach,” the spokesperson added.
Google has an opportunity to lead a change in consumer behavior around internet search, but if the company doesn’t move fast enough, people will turn to other services, according to Google’s 2005 history. John Battelle, author of “The Search,” says. .
“This is a very important moment for the company and I think they are fully aware of it,” Battelle added.
The world’s most trafficked website, Google’s search engine has handled more than 90% of searches on computers and mobile devices for years, according to data provider Statcounter. In 2020, the Justice Department sued Google, claiming it dominated the search market. This is the most significant antitrust lawsuit since the government challenged Microsoft’s position in his PC software market in the 1990s. (The lawsuit is expected to go to trial later this year.)
Since then, several new AI-powered apps have exploded in popularity, creating new challenges for Google’s power as a portal to the internet. Most recently, the ChatGPT bot, developed by Microsoft-backed OpenAI, sparked an alarm within Google, urging management to speed up work on a similar product.
Microsoft built the technology behind ChatGPT into its search engine, Bing, earlier this year to create a version that can enhance conversations with users. Smaller search engines are also vying to incorporate conversational AI capabilities in hopes of gaining users by moving faster than Google.
Millions of people use Google for important tasks, and websites such as online news outlets rely on search engines for the majority of their traffic. These factors, combined with the large amount of revenue associated with the product, make it difficult to make significant changes to search.
“For them, it’s not about having the talent or the team to do it. It’s more about how they care about their image and their shareholders,” said the former Google and OpenAI researcher. Yes, says Aravind Srinivas, CEO of search startup Perplexity.
Srinivas said Perplexity, which was launched last year, has 2.8 million monthly active users for its conversational search engine.
Chatbots such as ChatGPT tend to falsify information and sources with confidence. A recent study by researchers at Stanford University on search engines using conversational AI technology found that only 51.5% of sentences contained relevant citations, and more than a quarter of the citations contained relevant sentences. did not support the content of
Earlier this year, Microsoft’s version of Bing that used the technology behind ChatGPT caused some errors and disturbing reactions from some users, so the company called the product in development and made some adjustments to the technology. Now add. According to Statcounter, Bing’s share of the search market has remained below his 3% since Microsoft introduced the feature in February.
Google executives have stressed that search products that use conversational AI features shouldn’t upset website owners by, for example, including source links, The Wall Street Journal reports. Bard, an answer to ChatGPT, included some links to external sources when it was released in March, but Google never got around to integrating it directly into search.
The company recently asked a large group of employees to test Magi before the feature was introduced at its annual I/O conference on May 10, according to people familiar with the matter. The New York Times previously reported the project’s name.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in an interview with the Journal last month that one of the new search features will allow users to follow up on the original query.
“We’re working to make it work for our users,” Pichai said. “The bar is high for them, and we want to fill that bar.”
Google executives have also been keeping an eye on the rapid rise of China-based ByteDance-owned TikTok. Prabhakar Raghavan, senior vice president of Google and overseeing search engines, said at a conference last July that about 40 percent of young people use TikTok or Instagram, which is owned by Meta Platforms, when searching for restaurants. said, citing an internal investigation.
Incorporating user-generated content into search results also poses many complications. Platforms like TikTok can be powerful vehicles for misinformation and misleading information, researchers say.
According to a document outlining the company’s search strategy, the move will force Google to “refine its definition of ‘authoritative’ content,” especially if there is no single correct answer. According to the document
