Google Neutralizes Its Rivals… For Now

Gizmodo

2 days ago

For over two decades, 'Google it' has been the default way to find answers online. Now that dominance is being tested by a new wave of AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT and upstarts such as Perplexity, which deliver conversational answers instead of a list of links. These disruptors are being cast as a mortal threat to Google Search, long the undisputed king of the internet.
But on Wednesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivered a powerful counter-narrative, armed with staggering new data that suggests the AI 'threat' is actually making its core product stronger than ever. The story Google is telling is not one of defense, but of offense. Far from cannibalizing its search business, AI is encouraging people to search more, ask new kinds of questions, and engage more deeply with the platform.
'We see AI powering an expansion in how people are searching for and accessing information, unlocking completely new kinds of questions you can ask Google,' Pichai said in remarks for the company's Q2 earnings call. 'Overall queries and commercial queries on Search continued to grow year over year. And our new AI experiences significantly contributed to this increase in usage.'
Pichai revealed that the company's new AI features are now driving 'over 10% more queries globally' for the types of searches that show them, a clear sign that AI is expanding the pie, not just slicing it differently.
At the heart of Google's strategy is a two-pronged approach designed to serve both casual users and power users simultaneously.
The first approach is AI Overviews, the AI-generated summaries that now appear at the top of many search results. This feature has been rolled out at a massive scale, now serving, Pichai claims, over 2 billion monthly users across more than 200 countries and territories. It's the mainstream integration designed to make everyday search faster and more efficient for the masses.
The second axis is AI Mode, an end-to-end conversational search experience for more complex and nuanced questions. While still rolling out, this power-user tool has already attracted, the CEO says, over 100 million monthly active users in the U.S. and India. This is Google's direct answer to the advanced capabilities of its new competitors—ChatGPT and Perplexity— offering a space for deeper exploration within Google ecosystem.
Is This the End of Google As We Know It?
According to Google, this evolution of search is resonating most strongly with the users who will define the next decade of the internet: young people. Pichai emphasized that the growth in new search behaviors, particularly multimodal search—using tools like Google Lens or Circle to Search to ask questions with images—was 'most pronounced among younger users.' By integrating AI in a way that feels intuitive and powerful to a generation that has grown up with visual communication, Google wants to make sure it stays relevant.
The ultimate validation of this strategy lies in the numbers. In a direct rebuttal to fears that AI would kill its golden goose, Alphabet reported $54.19 billion in second-quarter search revenue, up 12% year-over-year.
The AI-powered experience is proving to be not just engaging, but highly lucrative. Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler noted during the earnings' call with analysts that advertisers using the company's new AI-powered tools are seeing tangible benefits, with AI Max campaigns delivering '14% more conversions' on average. This proves that a more complex, AI-driven search experience can be even more valuable for advertisers, he claimed.
OpenAI's ChatGPT and smaller players like Perplexity AI are winning early adopters who prefer direct, conversational responses over Google's traditional list of blue links. These platforms summarize and synthesize information instantly, bypassing the need to click through multiple sites. This shift threatens Google's core business model: search advertising.
A shift from traditional search to AI-generated answers could reshape how people consume information online. Instead of clicking through multiple sources, users may rely on a single AI response, potentially concentrating power in fewer platforms and reducing traffic to independent publishers.
For Google, the challenge is to evolve fast enough to keep its users while preserving the revenue streams that make up the bulk of its business. 'We'll focus on the organic experience for the near term,' Pichai told analysts.
Google is not simply adding AI to its old search box to keep competitors at bay. It's building an entirely new information engine, one designed to answer questions people never even thought to ask. The AI race has forced Google to evolve fast, and it could make Search more indispensable, and more profitable, than ever. Google wants to stay the gatekeeper of how we access information.