Is Google about to destroy the web?
www.bbc.com
Google says adding more AI to its search engine will rejuvenate the internet. Others predict an apocalypse for websites. One thing is clear: this era of online history is closing.

An estimated 68% of internet activity starts on search engines and about 90% of searches happen on Google. If the internet is a garden, Google is the Sun that lets the flowers grow.

This arrangement held strong for decades, but a seemingly minor change has some convinced that the system is crumbling. You’ll soon see a new AI tool on Google Search. You may find it very useful. But if critics’ predictions come true, it will also have seismic consequences for the internet. They paint a picture where quality information could grow scarcer online and large numbers of people might lose their jobs. Optimists say instead this could improve the web’s business model and expand opportunities to find great content. But, for better or worse, your digital experiences may never be the same again.

On 20 May 2025, Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai walked on stage at the company’s annual developer conference. It’s been a year since the launch of AI Overviews, the AI-generated responses you’ve probably seen at the top of Google Search results. Now, Pichai said, Google is going further. “For those who want an end-to-end AI Search experience, we are introducing an all-new AI Mode,” he said. “It’s a total reimagining of Search.”

You might be sceptical after years of AI hype, but this, for once, is the real deal.

People use Google Search five trillion times a year – it defines the shape of the internet. AI Mode is a radical departure. Unlike AI Overviews, AI Mode replaces traditional search results altogether. Instead, a chatbot effectively creates a miniature article to answer your question. As you read this, AI Mode is rolling out to users in the US, appearing as a button on the search engine and the company’s app. It’s optional for now, but Google’s head of Search, Liz Reid, said it plainly when launching the tool: “This is the future of Google Search.”

  • Zaleramancer@beehaw.org
    151·
    2 days ago

    Search engines are already basically worthless, so I’m not surprised with the falling axe.

    The shift from search engines actually indexing things to search through to trying to parse a question and find an answer has been the most irritating trend for me. I remember when you could just put in a series of words and be delivered unto every indexed page that had all of them.

    Now I regularly get told that even common words don’t exist if I insist that, no, google I do want only searches with the words I put in.

    This is my old person rant, I guess. /s

    This change is probably going to cause huge problems for a lot of existing sites, especially because it means Google will probably start changing their advertising model now that they can consolidate the views into a specific location and pocket the money. The article mentions this, but doesn’t realize the implications.

    “The internet will still be around,” is only true if you hold that the super consolidated, commericalized nexus of doom is going to continue on just fine, while countless small, very useful websites made by actual people for actual reasons fade away into oblivion.

    It sucks to watch something I have loved my whole life die, but it’s going bit by bit because we can’t convince our politicians to do anything about it.

    • megopie@beehaw.orgEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      I think Google is doing this specifically because of the anti trust trial against their ad monopoly/monopsony.

      Like they’re clearly loosing the trial and that means they’re probably going to have to sell off parts of their advertising company, or at least massively alter how they operate to end the anti competitive practices.

      It used to be that Google made money on every user, even if they left the site, because they served all the ads on every other site as well. Now that they won’t be making money that way, so they don’t want people going to other sites anymore.

    • knokelmaat@beehaw.org
      5·
      2 days ago

      Isn’t this site proof that the internet doesn’t have to die as a whole? I mean, I agree with your sentiment, but I feel that this will mostly hit the middle to high traffic sites. The community based ones with organic discovery will remain OK I think. This might even evolve back to an early internet age of smaller hobbyist sites because there no longer is big money in the internet (apart from what google captures as “their” internet)