“The era of the ‘10 blue links’ is over,” said Sarah Perez in TechCrunch. At its annual I/O conference two weeks ago, Google announced it is overhauling the search box in what the company described as “the biggest change to this entry point to the web in 25 years.” A new “intelligence search box” will respond to longer, more conversational queries and “drop users into AI-powered interactive experiences.” And soon, people will be able to dispatch “information agents” right from Google Search that can keep them abreast of changes for topics they’d otherwise have to search for, such as stock prices and clothing sales. “This shift means that ‘searching the web’ will increasingly be performed by AI agents rather than humans,” and links could soon “become an afterthought.”
Google was “all hype” for the unveiling of this tectonic development in front of an adoring crowd, said Tyler Lacoma in CNET. But for people in the real world, the news was “clear and disturbing.” The threat is existential “not just to developers, but to all online workers,” as well as small businesses who rely on search traffic to get customers. Google’s vision is that you no longer need to venture out onto the internet, said Katie Notopoulos in Business Insider. The internet will be “brought to you in a sanitized form by an intermediary.” That will totally ruin the experience. I love the internet and love searching around it for new things. These promised changes “give me an awful sinking feeling.”
But there are some genuinely great things about Google’s new AI-powered search bar, said Jason England in Tom’s Guide. It offers a “really nice, curated way to scythe your way through what is becoming an increasingly noisy internet.” You can easily plan a weekend, for instance, based on what Google “already knows about you,” letting it automatically “build a schedule that knows your tastes and availability.” I won’t miss the era of “10 blue links,” even if I worry about what happens to online sites once “a key referrer drops to zero.”
The problem is that Google seems to lack focus, said Dave Lee in Bloomberg. The company that was once criticized for “being too slow to ship AI products” has gone to “now not knowing when to slow down.” In addition to the new AI search tools, it announced new AI-powered Gmail features, updates to Google Pics (not to be confused with Google Photos) and Google Flow, and even a new pair of smart glasses. The slew of new technology is “dizzying” and could leave consumers overwhelmed and “more resistant as a result.” Google has the engineering expertise, capital, hardware, and customer base to win the AI race. But there is “such a thing as doing too much too quickly.”