Google’s AI-Powered Search Journey: A New Era for Search Innovation

Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently discussed the company’s plans to integrate more AI into its search results during the company’s earnings call on Tuesday. This marks the beginning of a "journey" around AI, which is expected to have a significant impact on the search industry.

The Start of the Journey: AI Overviews

The start of this journey was AI overviews, a controversial and monumental shift in how Google delivers information to billions of Search users. While the initial rollout was met with some issues, including inaccurate and weird AI hallucinations, Google has acknowledged that AI overviews need some work.

The Next Phase: DeepMind Integration

Throughout the call, Pichai laid out the next phase of Google’s plan to pack Search with AI features from the company’s research lab, DeepMind. The Search product is slowly becoming more like an AI assistant that browses the internet for you, looks at web pages, and returns an answer.

A Long Way Off from Simple Search

It’s a long way off from a simple search system that gives you ten blue links. Google has been on this path for a few years now, ever since the search giant was caught flat footed by the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022. The shift has massive implications for websites that rely on Google’s traffic and businesses that buy ads on Google Search.

Big Plans for Project Astra

When asked about the future of AI and Search, Pichai said that, "You can imagine the future with Project Astra," a reference to DeepMind’s multimodal AI system, which can process live video from a camera or computer screen and answer user questions about what the AI sees in real time. Google has big plans for Project Astra in other parts of its business too, including the creation of augmented reality smart glasses.

Gemini Deep Research: A New Era for Search

Pichai also mentioned Gemini Deep Research – an AI agent that takes several minutes to create long research reports – as a feature that could fundamentally shift how people use Google Search. Deep Research automates work that people have traditionally done with Google Search. But now, it seems Google wants to do that research for users.

Expanding Use Cases for Search

Pichai said, "You are really dramatically expanding the types of use cases for which Search can work – things which don’t always get answered instantaneously, but can take some time to answer." These are all areas of exploration, and Google will be putting new experiences in front of users through the course of 2025.

Project Mariner: A New AI Agent

Pichai said further that Google has a "clear sense" of the Search experiences it could create with another one of Google’s AI agents, Project Mariner. That system can use the front-end of websites on behalf of users, making it unnecessary for people to use websites themselves.

A Chatbot-Like Interface

Google’s CEO also said there’s an "opportunity" around letting users interact more and ask follow-up questions with Google Search. Pichai was light on details there, but it sounds like Google is considering ways to make its Search interface more like a chatbot.

A New Era for Google Search

Today, ChatGPT has matured into one of the internet’s most used products, with hundreds of millions of weekly users. It presents an existential threat to Google Search’s long-term business. To address it, Google is not only building a competitor AI chatbot with Gemini, but also injecting AI features directly in Search.

A Bumpy Start

Of course, the first step on Google Search’s AI journey did not go very well. When Google rolled out AI overviews to all of Google Search, the system displayed inaccurate and weird AI hallucinations. These included answers that told people to eat rocks and put glue on their pizza. Google admitted at the time that AI overviews needed some work.

A New Chapter for Google Search

Despite this negative rollout, it appears Google is just getting started putting AI into Search. The company is committed to making its search results more accurate and helpful, and it’s clear that AI will play a major role in that effort.