During its Google I/O conference, the American giant unveiled an overhaul of its search engine. Google Search will be powered by artificial intelligence to do the work for users.
It’s been more than 25 years since Google launched its search engine and changed the way we look for answers on the internet, get information or educate ourselves. Change the way in which site creators can also put themselves forward in the results, brands advertise themselves or even the media promote their information. This will all be turned upside down very soon.
During its Google I/O conference on May 14, the Californian giant announced the launch of IA Overviews in Google Search. After presenting its new artificial intelligence function last year, Google is formalizing its launch, initially in the United States. Concretely, the results generated by AI will invest in the results of its search engine, at the risk of destabilizing users.
The simple list of links in response to your query could soon be history. The search results will be powered by AI and Gemini, the in-house conversational robot, in the form of ready-to-use answers, written and enriched if necessary by videos, images, maps and other elements found on the internet. From now on, at the top of the page, Gemini will offer a direct answer, based on its billions of results and information available.
According to Google, this will allow you to “avoid the tedious tasks of research, planning or even brainstorming”. Reflection and sorting of information too. This Gemini model adapted to Google Search can thus compile a search in several stages in its synthesis, taking into account data, documents, video, photos or audio.
In AI Overviews, the user will have all the information summarized and arranged to save time, Google promises. But few or no links to Source sites or news media, relegated much further down the page, under advertising. An overview of a subject to cover it in a few seconds and suggestions for going further in your query will then be displayed.
If this will not only disrupt the usage habits of Internet users with this rearrangement of results, the new Google Search with AI could also disrupt the referencing – and therefore the economic model – of many sites. Google assures that this will not change anything and that, on the contrary, AI Overview, during beta testing, allowed users to “visit a greater diversity of sites to answer their more complex questions”.
Links included in AI Overviews generate more clicks than if the page appeared as a traditional web listing for that query. As we expand this experience, we will continue to focus on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators,” Google assures.
Google Search with AI will be available in computer version, but also on the mobile application. Google relies on a natural search, composed of several elements and using simplified language, to attract users.
And use it in advance to plan your vacation or plan a week of meals. All you have to do is give your destination, your tastes, your time, or your budget for Google Search to become a tour operator and put together a tailor-made vacation program for you. The same for your week of meals healthy easy to prepare, composed of recipes found on the web with the foods you like. Options which will soon arrive in the general public version.
