"So what? This dilutes the impact of a 2024 ruling that the company illegally monopolised the online search industry. It also allows Google to continue on its transformation from a search to an answer engine. AI Mode does away with clickable blue links and provides responses to user queries in the same way as ChatGPT. The tool could fuel the penetration of AI deeper into everyday life;"
"Soft launch. Nearly 70 per cent of internet activity starts with search engines, and 90 per cent of searches are on Google. AI Mode is optional, appearing at the top of traditional results pages. But it could become Google's default setting. Launching AI mode in May, senior executive Liz Reid called it "the future of Google Search". The tool was rolled out in the UK in July, after the US and India."
"Brave new world. Chatbots, such as Google's AI Mode, work differently. They scrape the internet for information and regurgitate it in summarised form, meaning users have no need to go to the source. Google Overviews, AI-generated snippets introduced at the top of searches last year, are thought to have reduced some clicks to sites by more than a third. Chatbots have an even larger impact and lead to 96 per cent less referral traffic than traditional searches."
A US district judge declined to order a breakup of Google, diluting the effect of a 2024 ruling that Google illegally monopolised online search. Google is shifting from a search engine to an answer engine with AI Mode, which replaces clickable links with AI-generated responses similar to ChatGPT. AI Mode could deepen AI penetration, reduce traffic to publishers, and disrupt Google's $175 billion search advertising model. The feature appears at the top of result pages and is optional but may become default. Google launched AI Mode in multiple countries and plans a global rollout, raising concerns about publisher revenue and content sustainability.
Read at The Observer
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]