Within the scope of Google I / O 2024, the search giant's announcements continue. The technology giant is changing Google Search from top to bottom, adding productive artificial intelligence to almost every field.
Love it or hate it, but Google Search is changing from top to bottom. As part of Google I/O 2024, the tech giant is adding artificial intelligence to almost every part of the search, from ‘AI Overviews’ integration to automatic categorisation. Moreover, these changes are being rolled out to everyone in the US starting today. Very soon, it will be expanded to more countries and billions of users.
‘With expanded AI Overviews, more planning and research capabilities, and AI-organised search results, our proprietary Gemini model takes the legwork out of search’ Google said, pulling the rope on 25 years of Search. Google is now rolling out AI Overviews, formerly known as Search Generative Experience or SGE, to users in the US and soon around the world.
Billions of Google users will soon see AI-generated summaries at the top of their search results. And this is just the beginning. In addition, Google will start to give general ideas about your search result with AI Overviews with links to your query. According to Google, people click more on the links provided in AI Overviews.
Google emphasises that while expanding this experience, it will continue to focus on sending valuable traffic to publishers and content creators. And of course, adverts, sponsored links and organic results will be accessible by scrolling down - and it will be a long scroll.
On the other hand, it will now be possible to search by shooting video with Google Lens. It will also be possible to create a travel or meal plan using your search query.
All this is made possible by a new Gemini model customised for Google Search. Gemini's advanced capabilities such as multi-step reasoning, planning and multimodality (text, video, image and audio) are being deeply integrated into Search. This is a slightly fancier way of saying that Search is changing from the ground up.
In addition, Google says that AI Overviews and other AI capabilities will not work for every query. If you only type DonanımHaber into Google, it would not make much sense to add artificial intelligence to it. On the other hand, if you have a complex query that can be divided into multiple searches (I mean traditional), this will be exactly the area where artificial intelligence will be involved. An example search where artificial intelligence will be involved could be: ‘Find suitable locations for jogging in Istanbul, as well as distances to gyms with discounts for new members’
In such searches, Google will not only give you a result, but also allow you to make plans. These planning steps will initially be in the areas of food and holidays. Let's say you've planned a dinner date for a few people, including information such as venue and menus. A few hours before the dinner, you decide to make an emergency change of plan and replace the dinner with a vegan meal. With Search, you'll be able to customise your plan and quickly export it to Docs or Gmail. Meal and trip planning is currently available in English in Search Labs in the US.
Google also says that soon, when searching for ideas, Search will use generative AI to brainstorm with you and create an AI-organised results page that makes it easier to explore. You'll be shown results with a wide range of perspectives and content types, categorised under unique AI-generated headings. This will come into play for English-language searches in the US, showing these new AI-organised search results when you're looking for inspiration. Initially, this brainstorming will be limited to food and recipes, before expanding to films, music, books, hotels, shopping and more.
Google already has visual search with Lens, and now videos are being added to it. For example, you bought a turntable from a second-hand shop, but when you switch it on, it doesn't work and the metal part with the needle drifts unexpectedly. Searching by video can save you the time and trouble of finding the right words to describe this problem. AI Overview can offer suggestions and resources to troubleshoot the problem. This feature will also be available for English Search Labs users in the US
As a result, Google is no longer just a place where you search by typing keywords. The box is still the same, but the librarian has changed. This librarian thinks he knows everything and is confident that he can give you answers in the most useful way. How this will work in practice remains to be seen. However, Google does not mention in its blog post the tendency of generative AI to produce hallucinations and misinformation. This is actually the reason why there is no general use. But one way or another, Google Search will change completely very soon. It will take a long scroll to get to the old blue coloured links.
