Google launched on Tuesday a new round of artificial intelligence tools to further its year-long overhaul of its search engine, reshaping how users access information and reducing web traffic to other sites.
The next phase outlined at Google’s annual developers conference includes releasing a new “AI mode” option in the United States. The company says the feature will make interacting with its search engine more like having a conversation with an expert capable of answering a wide array of questions.
AI mode is being offered to all users in the US just two-and-a-half months after the company began testing with a limited Labs division audience.
Google is also feeding its latest AI model, Gemini 2.5, into its search algorithms and will soon begin testing other AI features, such as the ability to automatically buy concert tickets and conduct searches through live video feeds.
In another example of Google’s all-in approach to AI, the company revealed it isplanning to leverage the technology to re-enter the smart glasses market with a new pair of Android XR-powered spectacles. The preview of the forthcoming device, which includes a hands-free camera and a voice-powered AI assistant, comes 13 years after the debut of Google Glass, a product that the company scrapped after a public backlash over privacy concerns.
Google didn’t say when its Android XR glasses will be available or how much they will cost, but disclosed they will be designed in partnership with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker. The glasses will compete against a similar product already on the market from Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Ray-Ban.
The expansion builds upon a transformation that Google began a year ago with the introduction of conversational summaries called “AI overviews” that have been increasingly appearing at the top of its results page and eclipsing its traditional rankings of web links.
About 1.5 billion people now regularly engage with “AI overviews”, according to Google, and most users are now entering longer and more complex queries.
“What all this progress means is that we are in a new phase of the AI platform shift, where decades of research are now becoming reality for people all over the world,” Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, said before a packed crowd in an amphitheater near the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Although Pichai and other Google executives predicted AI overviews would trigger more searches and ultimately more clicks to other sites, it hasn’t worked out that way so far, according to the findings of search optimization firm BrightEdge.
Clickthrough rates from Google’s search results have declined by nearly 30% during the past year, according to BrightEdge’s recently released study, which attributed the decrease to people becoming increasingly satisfied with AI overviews.
The decision to make AI mode broadly available after a relatively short test period reflects Google’s confidence that the technology won’t habitually spew misinformation that tarnishes its brand’s reputation, and acknowledges the growing competition from other AI-powered search options from the likes of ChatGPT and Perplexity.
The rapid rise of AI alternatives emerged as a recurring theme in legal proceedings that could force Google to dismantle parts of its internet empire after a federal judge last year declared its search engine to be an illegal monopoly.
In testimony during a trial earlier this month, longtime Apple executive Eddy Cue said Google searches done through the iPhone maker’s Safari browser have been declining because more people are leaning on AI-powered alternatives.
Google has cited the upheaval being caused by AI’s rise as one of the main reasons that it should only be required to make relatively minor changes to the way it operates its search engine because technology already is changing the competitive landscape.
Source: The Guardian
Bd-pratidin English/ Afia
