Google, Redefined
If you’ve opened your browser to a Google homepage recently, you might have noticed some changes. Last week, the search engine giant – whose name has become so synonymous with what it does that it’s been added to the general lexicon – unveiled an overhaul of the search function centered around a reimagined ‘intelligent search box’, powered by AI. TechCrunch published an article covering these changes and summarized it thusly: instead of returning a simple list of links, Google Search will drop users into AI-powered interactive experience.
On the surface, it seems pretty straightforward. The query box has been expanded. Where before a user would enter a short question (ie: how to do [x]), now users can enter longer, more nuanced inquiries, leading to follow up questions in a more conversational way than simply picking through links that may be relevant. There are other facets to this change as well. Agentic tools that will continue to run in the background even when the user is not present that will then notify the user when a search has found new data. The ability to craft ‘mini-apps’ tailored to the user’s parameters.
I can see the appeal of a tool like this, at least for a certain demographic. Google itself suggests that this will be useful for keeping track of changes in financial markets, for instance. But the vast majority of searches are less corporately motivated, in my experience. For me, as a researcher, digging through links to find relevant information is the job. I’m not interested in having an AI summarize it, much less creating an interactive space that separates me from the source material I’m looking for. The article highlight an example from Liz Reid, the head of Search, regarding searching about black holes, and how this new feature ‘could lead to an interactive visual that brings the concept to life’. Going to an actual website would do the same thing.
Because that’s the flipside of this feature. Instead of automatically providing links to users, it will aggregate all the information that already exists on sites into one place. The links will still be there, but will no longer be the focus. Will the interactive spaces be properly cited with links to the source material? Will it keep misinformation and slop filtered out? How? Many educational facilities already don’t allow students to use Wikipedia as a resource, despite the fact that every source is linked in a Wiki article, or clearly noted where the information may not be accurate. This sounds an awful lot like Google trying to make itself into a copycat.
Discovery is the objective of a search. Automating that process defeats the purpose. AI Overview already has a reputation for being bad. Information laid out in ways that miss details, misinterpret meanings or are outright fabrications. Not to mention what this will do to sites reliant on clicks for ad revenue. This isn’t just going to change how people run a search query, it will devalue every site connected to it which could lead to a collapse of those sites and therefore the information stored on them. They say nothing on the internet is ever truly lost, but if it’s not being maintained and updated, it’s equally as useless as a source of data as it would be if it didn’t exist at all. Ask any civil engineer what outdated information does to future planning. Ask anyone using GPS directions that haven’t caught up to traffic changes how lost they’ve gotten.
Automation has its place. But information isn’t one of them. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said it, but LLM’s don’t think or make judgment calls. They’re sorting machines working on a logic path that cannot account for the variety of unique perspectives of real human beings.
Google claims AI Mode is not the default, but short of using a browser where one can turn off all AI tools, I haven’t found another way to disable it. Users were not given an option; it just appeared. Google keeps track of its metrics. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to them after an initial surge of curiosity. My money is on users trying it once to see what the fuss is about, then going back to their normal search habits. A small percentage might actually find this new format useful in the long term, but the average user isn’t following marketing trends. They just want to find stuff and be directed to the place where that stuff is. Because that’s what a search engine is for.
Posted, 5/26/26
