It also announced the biggest change to Google Search in years, the awkward name change to “search generation experience.” It’s essentially a single AI-generated answer to a query that appears above the normal search results for ads and links.
Google has made one thing clear. That is, while the company is under pressure to be careful about how it deploys this powerful technology, it is moving quickly. But beware of moving too quickly and undermining your position with both users and advertisers.
Management has been unabashed in communicating their priorities. Note how Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan responded to Bloomberg News’ question about allowing external monitoring of its AI. He said Google will contribute to the scientific community, but will be “more committed to getting things into the product quickly.”
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT six months ago, Google seemed behind. Now Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has vowed to “reimagine every core product” with generative AI. Some observers are impressed. Citigroup analysts said in a report that those who attended the event were “confident in Google’s generative AI strategy.” (Bloomberg has announced its own language model for finance, which could compete with his GPT-4 in OpenAI.)
On the plus side, Google has shown strength in its cloud business, trailing Amazon Inc.’s AWS and Microsoft Corp.’s Azure. Businesses can use Google’s Duet AI service to build apps without any serious coding knowledge. Gmail users can get email drafts through AI. Google’s text-to-speech tool Chirp is accepting Wendy’s drive-thru orders. These features could give Google a boost in an industry notorious for its traditional contracts with companies.
But the real question mark lies in the planned changes to Google’s biggest product, search.
When a user types in a query, Google’s search engine will soon be churning out AI answers synthesized from other text on the web. Below is an example query about visiting national parks with children and dogs.
The answer is displayed at the top, with a link to the site that pulled the answer on the left. However, on the small screens of mobile devices, this looks very different. Users should scroll down to see these sources, never mind other sites that might help them with their search.
This is a concern for both Google’s users as well as paying customers such as advertisers and website publishers. Over 60% of his Google searches in the US are done on mobile phones. For most people, this means Google’s AI answers will occupy most of their phone screens. Will people keep scrolling looking for quotes to tap on? Probably not.
Asked about whether people access these sources, a Google executive told The Washington Post, “Users really, really want to know where their information comes from.”
i won’t buy it Searchers may scan the link to double-check that it’s legitimate, but most of the time they won’t click the link. It takes a few more seconds to scroll and load, and forever online. After all, there’s a reason for the joke that the best place to keep a corpse is his second page of Google search results. Most people don’t mind continuing their search beyond the initial linked list.
“It’s safe to bet on laziness,” Silicon Valley celebrity Paul Graham tweeted on Tuesday, the day before Google’s announcement. He said generative AI was “one of the biggest bets on laziness in history.”
Graham is correct. And if Google’s AI search is so good that people stop clicking links, the price could anger advertising customers. It also risks eroding consumer trust if tools start generating too many incorrect answers, a problem OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Bing, and Google’s Bard have all run into. In a sign that Google still hasn’t figured out even the basics, a tech journalist asked Google’s new AI search for chocolate chip cookie recipes and got a recipe without chocolate chips.
This shows how uncertain times are for Google. Company executives have repeatedly said AI search is experimental. But for Google and its hundreds of millions of users, participating in an “experiment” can feel like traveling in a car whose steering wheel is designed on the fly. We are on a wild journey.
Details from Bloomberg Opinion:
• AI Music Brings the Sound of a Cheater to Spotify: Lionel Laurent
• Drone superhighways will take Britain where it needs to be: Dave Lee
• AI’s ‘godfather’ should have spoken up sooner: Palmy Olson
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Palmy Olson is a technology columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. She is a former Wall Street Journal and Forbes reporter and author of We Are Anonymous.
More articles like this can be found at bloomberg.com/opinion.
