Latest news with #ElizabethReid
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First Post
22-05-2025
- Business
- First Post
How Google is changing the way you google
Google has launched its new 'AI mode' tool in the US. With this, the company has embedded its chatbot capabilities into its search engine. However, the feature has drawn flak from news publishers in America. Here's why read more Google has rolled out AI Mode for all its users in the US. AP Google is changing the way we use its search engine. The tech giant on Tuesday (May 20) launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) Mode that combines its chatbot capabilities with its search engine in the United States. The AI mode enables Google's users to ask more complex queries and interact with its search engine as if they are having a conversation with an expert. The tool was announced at Google's annual developers conference in Mountain View, California, as the tech giant tackles growing competition from OpenAI's ChatGPT and other AI services. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Here's a look at how Google is reforming its Search. Google unveils AI Mode Google has introduced AI Mode for all users in the US. With this, the company has embedded a custom version of its Gemini 2.5 into its search engine. Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google's parent Alphabet, said the move signals a 'new phase of the AI platform shift'. 'With more advanced reasoning, you can ask AI both longer and more complex queries,' he said at Google's annual I/O developer conference on Tuesday. More from Explainers Is US considering a reality TV show for immigrants to compete for citizenship? 'AI Mode is where we'll first bring Gemini 's frontier capabilities, and it's also a glimpse of what's to come,' Elizabeth Reid, vice president and head of Google Search, said in a blog post. The AI Mode is different from a regular Google Search as it allows users to ask follow-up questions and find hyper-relevant content that matches their query, the company says. Google is facing growing competition from ChatGPT and other AI services. File Photo/Reuters It will use the query fan-out method, where AI will divide the search query into subtopics and raise further search queries on the user's behalf, according to the Indian Express report. The AI Mode will also assist people in shopping by showing them products and product details in an easy-to-browse panel, with a digital try-on feature, AI agent-driven price tracking and so on. A 'deep search' option will empower AI to go deeper into complex topics. AI Mode will also be able to create graphical presentations of sports and finance data and analyse datasets. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Search Live will let users have a chat with the AI chatbot about what is visible on their phone or through their phone's camera, as per the newspaper. If users want to book tickets or restaurant reservations, an AI agent can also scan various sites and provide multiple options. Google has rolled out AI Mode just two-and-a-half months after the tech giant began testing with a limited Labs division audience. AI Mode also has an option that empowers it to draw information from other connected Google apps like Gmail, so it can learn more about the user's preferences. AI Mode faces flak News and media publishers have objected to Google's new AI Mode, calling it 'theft'. The News/Media Alliance, which represents around 2,000 publishers in the US, issued a strong rebuke of the launch of the new AI tool. Danielle Coffey, the group's president and CEO, said, 'Links were the last redeeming quality of search that gave publishers traffic and revenue. Now Google just takes content by force and uses it with no return, the definition of theft.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The group also urged US regulators, especially the Department of Justice (DoJ), to intervene. It mentioned Google's dominance over online information, which the group said was largely unchecked, adding that the new AI Mode further harms the already weakened relationship between publishers and the tech company. 'The DoJ remedies must address this to prevent continued domination of the internet by one company,' Coffey added. It's raining AI at Google Google is returning with smart glasses, over a decade after it launched Google Glass — which was later scrapped due to public outcry over privacy concerns. The US company demoed its Android XR-powered spectacles on Tuesday. They are equipped with a hands-free camera and a voice-powered AI assistant, as per BBC. The new Google glasses are being designed in collaboration with eyeglass retailers Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai speak at a Google I/O event in Mountain View, California, May 20, 2025. AP The tech giant showcases its AI model called Veo 3 that generates video and audio to create more realistic movie clips. Google also announced an 'AI Ultra Plan,' priced at $249.99 (Rs 21,491) monthly, which will provide access to all its AI technology and also includes 30 terabytes of storage. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The US company's increasing reliance on AI comes at a time when it is facing a potential dismantling of its search business after a district court ruled last year that Google had an illegal monopoly of the online search market. With inputs from agencies
Indian Express
21-05-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
Google I/O 2025: As Google pushes AI Mode in Search, will it help ease antitrust pressure?
Google's experimental AI Mode feature in Search, that enables deeper and more complex search queries, is now rolling out to all users in the US to start with. The announcement came during the opening keynote of Google's annual I/O developer conference held in Mountain View, California on Tuesday, May 20, and is focused on showing off the company's latest advancements in AI, Android, augmented reality, and more. Over the coming weeks, users in the US will start to see a new AI Mode tab in Google Search and as a button in the search bar within the Google app. While Google on Tuesday drew the curtains back on several new AI products, including the company's most advanced image and video generation models, AI Mode in Search was the big news to come out of I/O 2025 for two main reasons. Google has long dominated the search engine market, shaping the structure of the internet through the rise and fall of content driven by its search engine. But this dominance has come under threat recently with the rise of AI chatbots that have emerged as a viable alternative to looking up information online. In this context, AI Mode is billed to be the future of Google Search as it moves away from showing users a list of blue links on a web page to providing an end-to-end search experience. However, Google is also facing a prominent antitrust challenge where the US government is pushing for the company's search business to be broken up after a district court ruled last year that Google had an illegal monopoly of the online search market. AI Mode is powered by a custom version of Google's Gemini 2.5 frontier model. 'AI Mode is where we'll first bring Gemini's frontier capabilities, and it's also a glimpse of what's to come,' Elizabeth Reid, vice president and head of Google Search, said in a blog post. Searching in AI Mode is different from the typical search on Google as users can dive deeper into the web by asking follow-up questions and finding hyper-relevant content that matches their search query, according to Google. In order to display more helpful responses with web links, AI Mode relies on a query fan-out technique, where AI breaks down the search query into sub-topics and further initiates a multitude of search queries on a user's behalf. At I/O, Google also announced new capabilities of AI Mode that will become available to select, approved users under Google Labs in the coming weeks and months. One such feature is Deep Search, where AI Mode uses the same query fan-out technique to issue hundreds of searches and gather information across sources to generate an 'expert-level' research report with citations. This entire process will take minutes, Google claimed. With Search Live, users can have a back-and-forth vocal conversation with the AI chatbot about what they see on their phone screen or through their phone's camera. AI Mode will also come with certain agentic capabilities. For instance, when a user asks to book tickets or make restaurant reservations in AI Mode, it will kick off a query fan-out process by scanning several sites and presenting the user with various options. AI Mode will also provide a better shopping experience for users by showing them products and product details in an easy-to-browse panel, along with a virtual try-on feature, AI agent-driven price tracking, and autonomous checkout. This suggests that Google is going toe-to-toe with challengers like OpenAI which recently rolled out its own shopping update to ChatGPT. In addition, AI Mode will also have the capability to analyse datasets and real-time information to generate graphs, charts, and other data visualisations. During the Google antitrust search remedies trial, AI prominently featured in the arguments made by both sides. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) essentially argued that Google's new AI search products were just another way to lead users to its search engine and extend its dominance of the online search market. It has also warned that Google could come to dominate the AI space, the same way it has dominated search, if the court did not take any action. Google, on the other hand, has argued that there is growing competition in AI by pointing out the successes of OpenAI's ChatGPT and others. It called witnesses like Eddy Cue, an Apple executive, who suggested that AI was shrinking the antitrust threat posed by Google in search. Cue's testimony, however, tanked Google parent Alphabet's stock by eight per cent after he revealed that search volume to its Safari browser (running on Google's search engine) had declined for the first time in 22 years. To reassure shareholders over the threat posed by AI chatbots, Google quickly issued a statement saying that overall queries in Search have continued to grow, except that users are accessing it in different ways. At Tuesday's I/O event, Google's announcements largely echoed these arguments. It re-emphasised that 'there's been a profound shift in how people are using Google Search' with more than 1.5 billion people using visual search via Google Lens every month. 'In our biggest markets like the US and India, AI Overviews is driving over 10% increase in usage of Google for the types of queries that show AI Overviews,' it said. However, the accuracy of answers provided by AI-based search products are still under question as large language models (LLM) are prone to hallucinations. There are also concerns that Google may further eat into click-through rates as it leans more heavily on AI-generated search results. This would be bad for publishers and content creators who rely on traffic from Google Search. In terms of privacy, AI search engines could increase user tracking to gather more detailed feedback in order to improve search results. For instance, AI Mode has a personalised context setting which enables it to pull information from other connected Google apps like Gmail to show tailored results. However, Google has said that this will be an opt-in feature and users can choose to connect or disconnect the apps with AI Mode at any time.
Mint
21-05-2025
- Mint
Google is bringing a ChatGPT-like experience to Search and it's called ‘AI Mode'
Google has announced plans to start adding 'AI Mode' to Google Search and the Chrome browser in the US from this week, as part of its 'total reimagining of search'. This new feature will provide users with a full chatbot-like experience when searching for a query, enabling them to engage in follow-up conversations and communicate in natural language, as opposed to the collection of links typically associated with Google Search. This new development comes as Google faces rising competition in the search engine market from rivals such as Perplexity AI and OpenAI's ChatGPT, both of which offer a chatbot-like search experience. It is also significant that Google is launching AI Mode in Search at I/O 2025, given that AI Overviews — the AI-generated brief summary of a search query — were revealed at I/O 2024. In a blog explaining the logic behind AI Mode, Google VP, Head of Search, Elizabeth Reid wrote, 'AI Mode is our most powerful AI search, with more advanced reasoning and multimodality, and the ability to go deeper through follow-up questions and helpful links to the web' Google says that both the AI mode and AI Overviews will be powered by a custom version of Gemini 2.5 from this week. 'AI Mode uses our query fan-out technique, breaking down your question into subtopics and issuing a multitude of queries simultaneously on your behalf. This enables Search to dive deeper into the web than a traditional search on Google, helping you discover even more of what the web has to offer and find incredible, hyper-relevant content that matches your question.' Reid added. The company also noted that AI Mode will help users to visualise results by analysing complex datasets and creating custom-built graphs for particular queries. Google also plans to provide a more personalised experience for users in AI Mode by offering suggestions based on previous searches and providing the option to link other Google apps, starting with Gmail, to access additional personalised content.
The Verge
06-05-2025
- Business
- The Verge
DOJ's proposed Google changes would ‘deeply undermine user trust,' search chief says
The government's proposal to make Google share its search data with competitors would 'deeply undermine user trust' by putting queries in the hands of potentially less secure rivals, the company's search chief Elizabeth Reid testified Tuesday. The Justice Department has proposed forcing Google to syndicate its ranking signals and other search data to competitors, something it says will level the playing field and end Google's search monopoly. But Reid argued that exporting that data would shake users' faith that their searches would stay private, and its value would create an incentive for hackers to go after small competitors. 'Once it's turned over to a qualified competitor, there's no further protections we can give,' she said. 'A startup is generally not a target because it's small, but now it has this huge treasure trove of data.' Google is fighting the DOJ's sweeping proposals, which also include forcing it to sell its Chrome browser, by arguing for more limited changes to its search distribution contracts (it plans to appeal the monopoly ruling, but can't do so until Judge Amit Mehta issues a remedies decision). Reid's testimony follows that of other executives, including CEO Sundar Pichai, who claimed the government's proposals could drastically change Google and the larger web. The DOJ says its proposals are all necessary to restore competition to the search market, and it's argued that Google is exaggerating their dire effects. 'Maybe they decide to not use Google altogether, [or] maybe they decide they're not going to search for certain categories' Turning over information that powers Google's search would not only make its competitors targets for hacks, Reid said, but it could undermine trust in Google's products and search more broadly. Today, many people turn to Google to ask questions they may not even feel comfortable asking a friend, she said. 'If suddenly they're worried that data might go somewhere else … maybe they decide to not use Google altogether, [or] maybe they decide they're not going to search for certain categories.' During its case-in-chief, by contrast, the DOJ brought in a privacy expert who testified search information could be safely shared with certain protections in place. Reid echoed testimony from Pichai last week that the government's data-sharing proposals could help rivals or spammers 'reverse engineer' its systems, making it easier for them to get spam or misinformation ranked in Google results. Fighting these bad actors is 'always a cat and mouse game, but it suddenly becomes a cat and mouse game where your hands are really tied behind your back,' she said. Building the tools needed to follow the government's proposals would divert engineering talent toward tedious compliance work instead of innovation, Reid continued. She testified that more than 20 percent of the search engineering force would need to focus on compliance 'because it's so extensive and invasive.' Even incremental changes to small features could trigger extra steps, so Google would likely shift its focus to areas 'less covered by the remedies because that's where we can stand out,' she said, though she didn't get into specifics. On top of all of this, Reid said maintaining the tools needed to distribute all the information the DOJ wants it to share with rivals would slow down its ability to ship features that improve users' search experiences. 'It's just an incredibly large amount of work because these modules are constantly changing,' Reid said. 'The business value of syndication versus the cost just doesn't work out.'
CBC
11-04-2025
- Sport
- CBC
London cheerleading team wins national championships
A London cheerleading team made the top spot at the Canadian Cheer National Championships in Niagara Falls. CheerStrike Royals Legacy U18 Level 4 team won a national gold medal, the Canadian finals, and the overall finals championship. Athletes Grace Chantler and Elizabeth Reid, along with coach Peyton Demelo, joined London Morning to talk about the win.
