Google may be on the verge of replacing its standard setting of traditional search results with its AI mode. At least that’s what Google Lead Product Manager Logan Kilpatrick hinted at when he responded to the proposal on X.
AI Mode mixes Google’s Gemini AI with real -time search after direct conversation answers instead of the well -known list of links. AI mode is a Google Search tab and has just received a dedicated website on Google.com/ai, which contributes to the credibility of Kilpatrick’s comments.
The change can have huge consequences for how people find information online and for the sites that rely on Google must send them traffic. Publishers have already reported co -operation due to Google’s AI listings, which often answer users’ questions directly without requiring them to click through to another place. If AI mode becomes standard, these effects can only grow.
Google -Search Vice President Robby Stein soon tried to reassure those who were concerned about such a change. In his own X -post, he wrote that he “wouldn’t read too much into this. We focus on making it easy to access AI mode for those who want it.”
It still comes as a guard enough to cover any movement to change the standard. It is likely that writing is already on the wall (on the website). Google has increased exposure to its AI services for months. The features filter through Google Labs, but since then AI Summies and AI have gone globally, and Google has reported tens of thousands of millions of monthly active users of AI mode this summer. The way Google processes AI mode is like the next big thing, not just a side project.
AI -mode for all
If AI mode becomes standard, you may not notice much change at first. You just want to see the synthesized answer as a much larger part of the page, with links referred to a Diespanel. The long -term answer is more complicated because it is also a massive shift in how information moves on the web below the surface.
Traditional Google search is the basis for sites to be discovered. Links to everything from news sites and recipe blogs to indie movie producers and public services depend on being visible in Google search, not least for how they deliver money to these sites. Research has shown that AI listings have injured traffic to sites.
Google is the front door of the Internet for billions of people. If they change the door mat, you can’t really go somewhere else. Sure there are alternatives among search engines, but there is a reason why the verb to look for something online is google and not bing.
For now, you can stick to classic search, but it may not be an opportunity forever. AI mode is coming and Google will try to make it the basis of how people look for things online. How well it will do it may require a little more look, maybe ask DuckduckGo first.
