Google is Redesigning Its Search Engine — and It’s AI All the Way Down

A year ago, Google boldly claimed that AI was the future of search. That future has arrived: Google is beginning to roll out “AI Overviews,” previously known as the Search Generative Experience (SGE), to users in the US and soon around the world. Soon, billions of Google users will see an AI-generated summary at the top of many of their search results. And that’s just the start of how AI is revolutionizing search.

The AI Overhaul of Google Search

“What we see with generative AI is that Google can do more of the searching for you,” says Liz Reid, Google’s newly appointed head of Search, who has been working on various aspects of AI search for the past few years. “It can take a bunch of the hard work out of searching, so you can focus on the parts you want to do to get things done, or on the parts of exploring that you find exciting.”

Reid highlighted several features aimed at enhancing the search experience, all of which were announced at Google’s I/O developer conference. The AI Overviews are designed to provide a general sense of the answer to your query, along with links to resources for more information. A new feature in Lens lets you search by capturing a video. Additionally, there’s a new planning tool that can automatically generate a trip itinerary or a meal plan based on a single query. Another AI-powered feature organizes the results page so that when searching for restaurants in a new city, it can suggest options for a date night or a business meeting without you even having to specify.

Google's AI Overviews provide comprehensive summaries at the top of search results.

Full-Stack AI Integration

This transformation is a comprehensive AI-ification of search. Google is utilizing its Gemini AI to interpret user queries, whether they are typed, spoken, captured in a picture, or recorded in a video. A new specialized Gemini model summarizes the web and presents an answer, while also designing and populating the results page.

However, not every search requires this level of AI intervention. “If you just want to navigate to a URL, you search for Walmart and you want to get to walmart.com. It’s not really beneficial to add AI,” Reid explains. The real value of Gemini lies in more complex queries, where users would typically need to perform multiple searches or wouldn’t even think to use Google in the first place.

Enhancing Local Search and More

Local search is one area where AI can significantly improve user experience. “We can do things like ‘Find the best yoga or pilates studio in Boston rated over four stars within a half-hour walk of Beacon Hill,’” says Reid. This allows for more detailed and nuanced searches, combining information from Google’s Knowledge Graph and the web.

AI enhancements in Google Search are making local searches more precise and detailed.

Balancing Creativity and Factuality

Reid emphasizes the importance of accuracy in AI-generated content. “There’s a balance between creativity and factuality,” she notes. “We’re really going to skew it toward the factuality side.” This approach aims to ensure that AI Overviews are reliable, although no model is perfect, and Google will undoubtedly face challenges with inaccuracies.

The Future of Search

As AI becomes integral to search, products like Perplexity and Arc have faced scrutiny for summarizing the web without directing users to the original sources. Google aims to strike a balance by not triggering AI overviews for certain topics and ensuring that users still click through to high-quality content. Reid points out that young users, in particular, seek human perspectives, and it’s Google’s responsibility to provide that.

Over the last decade, Google has been transforming the way we search. It started as a simple keyword box; now, it aims to be an all-knowing assistant that can handle queries in any form and provide answers in the most helpful way. “You increase the richness, and let people ask the question they naturally would,” Reid says. This could lead to a new way of interacting with the internet: less typing, fewer tabs, and more natural interactions with a search engine.

Conclusion

Google’s redesign of its search engine with AI at its core represents a significant leap forward in how we access and interact with information. By integrating AI into every aspect of the search process, Google aims to make searching more intuitive, efficient, and personalized. As these changes roll out, users can look forward to a richer, more dynamic search experience that harnesses the power of AI to deliver more relevant and accurate results.

The future of Google Search is here, with AI transforming every aspect of the search experience.