Latest news with #LizReid
Time of India
25-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Google Search gets an ‘AI mode,' bringing chatbot-style answers to every question
AI has begun to replace the search as we know of it, as Google at the I/O announced the 'AI Mode.' Available to all US users starting today, CEO Sundar Pichai calls the AI mode , a 'total reimagining of search' that will transform's Google's headlining product from a link directory into an interactive AI assistant . "Search is bringing AI to more people than any other product in the world," Pichai said during the company's annual I/O developer conference, highlighting Google's 8.5 billion daily queries as a massive distribution advantage over competitors. AI Mode will provide users with a chatbot-style experience directly within Google Search, allowing them to ask follow-up questions and receive AI-generated responses rather than just links to websites. The feature was previously available only to limited test users through Google's Labs program. Google I/O 2025: AI Ultra tier, AI Mode on Search and more by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Trade Bitcoin & Ethereum – No Wallet Needed! IC Markets Start Now Undo "We launched AI Overviews last year at I/O, and since then there's been a profound shift in how people are using Google Search," said Liz Reid, VP and Head of Search at Google. "People are coming to Google to ask more of their questions, including more complex, longer and multimodal questions." The end of blue links The new AI Mode is a fundamental shift from Google's traditional approach of displaying webpages in response to queries. Instead, users can have conversational interactions similar to ChatGPT or even Perplexity, with the system providing synthesized answers and allowing follow-up questions. "The search results page was a construct," explained Liz Reid, who leads Google's search team, suggesting that the way people have used Google for two decades was largely a response to the web's structure. AI Overviews was beginning of this end, and the AI Mode is coming as users are engaging with artificially generated overviews more than blue links. "In our biggest markets like the U.S. and India, AI Overviews is driving over 10% increase in usage of Google for the types of queries that show AI Overviews," Reid stated. Nick Fox, who runs Google's knowledge and information products, views this shift as natural evolution: "In the past, search would have been limited to, 'if there's a piece of information out there, I can deliver it back to someone.'" He emphasized that Google's AI models now "have the ability to reason, to transform, to connect dots across, to synthesize, to do all these other things that go beyond information retrieval to this notion of intelligence." From search to becoming an agent Beyond AI Mode, Google also showed off its " Project Mariner ," which can autonomously perform tasks like booking travel or researching topics. The company also announced " Deep Search " for comprehensive research and "Search Live" for real-time visual assistance. However, there's still sometime before the blue links disappear altogether. Fox notes that the Google Search still remains the 'best experience' for most users, and at least for now, the AI mode will live in a separate tab, and users could use as they like. Although, the features sooner or later will gradually migrate to the traditional search experience. "In three years," Fox predicted, "we will all think about and use Search in a way completely unrecognizable to today's product." Google plans to first introduce these advanced capabilities in Labs for power users before gradually integrating successful features into the core Search experience. AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
If AI eats search, Google is still all in: Morning Brief
From a certain vantage point, Google looks like it's being bullied into accepting the ascendance of AI. After all, why mess with a trillion-dollar ads business that acts like a pillar of the consumer internet, a foundation for knowledge seeking, and a perpetual attention machine? The answer supplied by bears is because Google and Alphabet (GOOG) have to. Adapt or die. The flood of AI announcements at the company's I/O developer conference this week didn't really resolve that question as much as blow it up. It doesn't matter as much what is prompting Google to overhaul its search products. What's important is that people continue to use Google products — even if that means overhauling legacy search engines into AI agents and chatbots. If investors worry Google is cannibalizing its most treasured asset to fend off OpenAI and a new wave of rivals, Google's response seems to be: So be it. And by the way, we are the new wave. Enjoy your AI overview. Company executives use different keywords and metaphors, of course. What are tech conferences if not human prompt engineering? By subscribing, you are agreeing to Yahoo's Terms and Privacy Policy "We believe AI will be the most powerful engine for discovery that the web has ever seen," said Liz Reid, the leader of Google's search team, during the keynote presentation. Reid showcased Google's new AI Mode, a dedicated chatbot-style search option that's now built into the Google Search page alongside tabs like Images, Videos, and News. Instead of fetching a specific piece of information or presenting a series of hyperlinks, AI Mode offers a back-and-forth conversation, a synthesis of detailed research, and help with shopping and logistics. For Reid and the executive team, integrating AI into the search experience isn't a break from search but an evolution of it. What's left unresolved is how disruptive that may be for the businesses that rely on legacy Google search to send people their way. Or people who are Googling to explore and find questions, rather than simply answer them. For now, at least, the management team has touted that when people use AI Overviews, they're happier with the results and end up searching more often. As my colleague Dan Howley, who reported from the conference, put it, "This is Google's attempt to try and reestablish itself." A more intelligent search experience, bringing in additional features, is one that can better compete with the other AI companies that aim to overtake Google as the central interface to the web. Bullish analysts see Google's impressive slate of AI developments and search updates as an end to its "catch-up" period after the company, and much of Big Tech, was initially caught by surprise during ChatGPT's splashy rollout in 2022. Now Google is going on the offensive. "We see this as Google's 'Reels moment', taking on a growing and well-funded competitor in Open AI by integrating a directly competitive product," said Bank of America research analysts Justin Post and Nitin Bansal in a note on Wednesday. Whether Google will be able to squeeze similar levels of attention and cash from a new AI-centered regime remains an open question. The company's leaders are signaling they are confident it can. And if search, as we know it, is on the way out, Google is working to manage the exit on its own terms. Until there are viable search alternatives, Google has a captive audience to workshop its AI strategy, one overview at a time. Hamza Shaban is a reporter for Yahoo Finance covering markets and the economy. Follow Hamza on X @hshaban.
Hans India
22-05-2025
- Business
- Hans India
Google's Vision: A Future Where AI Does the Googling for You
At this year's Google I/O, artificial intelligence wasn'tjust part of the story—it was the story. The tech giant unveiled a vision forthe future in which Google's AI doesn't just help you search, it does thesearching for you. The centre of this evolution is AI Mode in Google Search, nowrolling out across the U.S. This new mode transforms the traditional search barinto an intelligent, chatbot-like interface capable of understanding complexqueries and pulling together comprehensive, curated responses. It's a step awayfrom the familiar list of blue links and a leap toward an AI that actively doesyour online legwork. During the keynote, Google demonstrated how AI Mode couldplan a weekend getaway to Nashville for friends interested in food, music, andunique experiences. Instead of offering a basic search result, AI Mode createddynamic, themed suggestions such as 'restaurants good for foodies,' 'chill baratmosphere with live music,' and 'off-the-beaten-path attractions,' completewith a customised map and links to relevant sites. Behind this capability is what Google calls its 'queryfanout technique,' powered by a custom version of its Gemini model. Liz Reid,head of Google Search, explained: 'Now, under the hood, Search recognizes when a questionneeds advanced reasoning. It calls on our custom version of Gemini to break thequestion into different subtopics, and it issues a multitude of queriessimultaneously on your behalf... Search pulls together a response and checksits work to make sure it meets our high bar for information quality.' This means that what used to be several separate searchesare now bundled into one—executed and analyzed by Google's AI, which thendelivers a comprehensive response. The AI Mode interface even shows users howmany searches it's performing in the background. Later this summer, a new 'Deep Search' feature is slated toarrive within AI Mode. It builds on the same query fanout approach but scalesit significantly. According to Reid, Deep Search can 'issue dozens or evenhundreds of searches on your behalf' to produce even more in-depth answers. Another key player in Google's AI ecosystem is ProjectMariner, a behind-the-scenes tool that allows AI to perform complex web can juggle up to 10 operations simultaneously and features a 'Teach and Repeat'capability, allowing users to train the system to perform recurring tasks. Google is extending these functionalities to the Geminiapp's new Agent Mode, which also taps into Project Mariner. CEO Sundar Pichaigave a live example of how Agent Mode could help find an apartment in Austin byautomatically scanning listings on Zillow and surfacing the best matches. Additionally, Project Mariner will soon integrate into AIMode itself. Rajan Patel, VP of Engineering for Search, demonstrated how thetool could locate baseball tickets and provide a direct purchase button—allfrom within the search interface. What Google is proposing is a major transformation in how weinteract with the web. The company sees AI not just as an assistant but as areplacement for many of the routine search tasks users handle today. As Reidsummed it up: 'Google believes AI will be the most powerful engine fordiscovery that the web has ever seen.' If these AI tools deliver as promised, users may findthemselves spending less time searching—and more time simply receiving theanswers they need. In Google's future, your next deep dive into the web mightjust start and end with one query, handled entirely by AI.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Google's AI agents will bring you the web now
For the last two decades, Google has brought people a list of algorithmically selected links from the web for any given search query. At I/O 2025, Google made clear that the concept of Search is firmly in its rearview mirror. On Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and his executives presented new ways to bring users the web, this time intermediated through a series of AI agents. 'We couldn't be more excited about this chapter of Google search where you can truly ask anything [...] your simplest and hardest questions, your deepest research, your personalized shopping needs,' said Google's VP of Search, Liz Reid, onstage at I/O. "We believe AI will be the most powerful engine for discovery that the web has ever seen." The largest announcement of I/O was that Google now offers AI mode to every Search user in the United States. This gives hundreds of millions of people a button to converse with an AI agent that will visit web pages, summarize them any way they'd like, or even help them shop. With Project Mariner, Google is delivering an even more hands-off AI agent to its Ultra subscribers. That agent will handle 10 different tasks simultaneously, visiting web pages and clicking around on those pages while users are free to plug away on something else altogether. Google is also making its Deep Research agent, which visits dozens of relevant websites and generates thorough research reports, more personalized, and is connecting it to your Gmail and Drive. In a parallel development, the company is further integrating Project Astra — the company's multimodal, real-time AI experience — into Search and Gemini, giving users more ways to verbally speak with an AI agent and let it see what they see. I could go on, but you get the idea — AI agents dominated I/O 2025. The rise of ChatGPT has forced an AI reckoning at Google, causing the company to rethink how it brings users information from the web. This reckoning really started at last year's I/O, when Google introduced AI overviews into Search, a launch that was overshadowed by its embarrassing hallucinations. The rollout of AI overviews made it seem as if AI was not ready for primetime, and that Search as we know it was here to stay. But at I/O 2025, Google presented a more compelling, fleshed-out approach to how AI would reshape Search, and thus, the web. The company's new vision suggests that the future of the web, and the company, involves AI agents fetching information from the web and presenting it to users in whatever way they'd like. The idea that Google's AI agents could replace Search is a compelling one, especially because Google is trying to lay an infrastructure for AI agents. Google announced on Tuesday that the SDK for Gemini models will now natively support Anthropic's MCP, an increasingly popular standard for connecting agents to data sources across the internet. Google isn't alone in this shift. At a different tech conference this week, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott laid out his own vision for an "open agentic web," in which agents take actions on users' behalf across the internet. Scott noted that a key feature to make this possible would be the plumbing that connects these agents to each other and data sources -- namely, Google's Agent2Agent protocol and Anthropic's MCP. Despite the enthusiasm, as Ben Thompson notes in Stratechery, the agentic web has its problems. For instance, Thompson notes that if Google sends AI agents to websites instead of people, that largely breaks the ad-supported model of the internet. The impacts could vary across industries. Agents may not be a problem for companies that sell goods or services on the internet, such as DoorDash or Ticketmaster — in fact, these companies are embracing agents as a new platform to reach customers. However, the same can't be said for publishers, which are now fighting with AI agents for eyeballs. During I/O, a Google communications leader told me that "human attention is the only truly finite resource," and the company's launch of AI agents aims to give users more of their time back. That may all pan out, but AI summaries of articles seem likely to take dollars away from publishers — and potentially devastate the very content creation on which these AI systems depend. Further, there's a lingering problem with AI systems around hallucinations — their tendency to make stuff up and present it as fact — which became embarrassingly clear with Google's launch of AI overviews. Speaking onstage Tuesday, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis even raised concerns about the consistency of AI models. "You can easily, within a few minutes, find some obvious flaws with [AI chatbots] — some high school math thing that it doesn't solve, some basic game it can't play," said Hassabis. "It's not very difficult to find those holes in the system. For me, for something to be called AGI, it would need to be much more consistent across the board." The consequences could be far-reaching. Widespread hallucinations could lead users to be more distrustful of information they encounter on the web. They could also sow misinformation among users. Either outcome is not ideal. Google doesn't seem to be waiting for ad-supported businesses or AI models to catch up — the company is pushing ahead with AI agents anyway. Google has likely done more than any other company to steward the web as we know it. But in what could prove a major turning point, the company's conception of the web seems to be reorienting around AI agents. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
TechCrunch
21-05-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
Google's AI agents will bring you the web now
For the last two decades, Google has brought people a list of algorithmically-selected links from the web for any given search query. At I/O 2025, Google made clear that the concept of Search is firmly in its rearview mirror. On Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and his executives presented new ways to bring users the web, this time intermediated through a series of AI agents. 'We couldn't be more excited about this chapter of Google search where you can truly ask anything […] your simplest and hardest questions, your deepest research, your personalized shopping needs,' said Google's VP of Search, Liz Reid, onstage at I/O. 'We believe AI will be the most powerful engine for discovery that the web has ever seen.' The largest announcement of I/O was that Google now offers AI mode to every Search user in the United States. This gives hundreds of millions of people a button to converse with an AI agent that will visit web pages, summarize them any way they'd like, or even help them shop. With Project Mariner, Google is delivering an even more hands-off AI agent to its Ultra subscribers. That agent will handle 10 different tasks simultaneously, visiting web pages and clicking around on those pages while users are free to plug away on something else altogether. Google is also making its Deep Research agent, which visits dozens of relevant websites and generates thorough research reports, more personalized and is connecting it to your Gmail and Drive. In a parallel development, the company is further integrating Project Astra — the company's multimodal, real-time AI experience — into Search and Gemini, giving users more ways to verbally speak with an AI agent and let it see what they see. I could go on, but you get the idea — AI agents dominated I/O 2025. The rise of ChatGPT has forced an AI reckoning at Google, causing the company to rethink how it brings users information from the web. This reckoning really started at last year's I/O, when Google introduced AI overviews into Search, a launch that was overshadowed by its embarrassing hallucinations. The rollout of AI overviews made it seem as if AI was not ready for primetime, and that Search as we know it was here to stay. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | REGISTER NOW But at I/O 2025, Google presented a more compelling, fleshed-out approach to how AI would reshape Search, and thus, the web. The company's new vision suggests that the future of the web, and the company, involves AI agents fetching information from the web and presenting it to users in whatever way they'd like. The idea that Google's AI agents could replace Search is a compelling one, especially because Google is trying to lay an infrastructure for AI agents. Google announced on Tuesday that the SDK for Gemini models will now natively support Anthropic's MCP, an increasingly popular standard for connecting agents to data sources across the internet. Google isn't alone in this shift. At a different tech conference this week, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott laid out his own vision for an 'open agentic web,' in which agents take actions on users' behalf across the internet. Scott noted that a key feature to make this possible would be the plumbing that connects these agents to each other and data sources — namely, Google's Agent2Agent protocol and Anthropic's MCP. Despite the enthusiasm, as Ben Thompson notes in Stratechery, the agentic web has its problems. For instance, Thompson notes that if Google sends AI agents to websites instead of people, that largely breaks the ad-supported model of the internet. The impacts could vary across industries. Agents may not be a problem for companies that sell goods or services on the internet, such as DoorDash or Ticketmaster — in fact, these companies are embracing agents as a new platform to reach customers. However, the same can't be said for publishers, which are now fighting with AI agents for eyeballs. During I/O, a Google communications leader told me that 'human attention is the only truly finite resource,' and the company's launch of AI agents aims to give users more of their time back. That may all pan out, but AI summaries of articles seem likely to take dollars away from publishers — and potentially devastate the very content creation on which these AI systems depend. Further, there's a lingering problem with AI systems around hallucinations — their tendency to make stuff up and present it as fact — which became embarrassingly clear with Google's launch of AI overviews. Speaking onstage Tuesday, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis even raised concerns about the consistency of AI models. 'You can easily, within a few minutes, find some obvious flaws with [AI chatbots] — some high school math thing that it doesn't solve, some basic game it can't play,' said Hassabis. 'It's not very difficult to find those holes in the system. For me, for something to be called AGI, it would need to be much more consistent across the board.' The consequences could be far-reaching. Widespread hallucinations could lead users to be more distrustful of information they encounter on the web. They could also sow misinformation among users. Either outcome is not ideal. Google doesn't seem to be waiting for ad-supported businesses or AI models to catch up — the company is pushing ahead with AI agents anyway. Google has likely done more than any other company to steward the web as we know it. But in what could prove a major turning point, the company's conception of the web seems to be reorienting around AI agents.
