Google may be on the verge of replacing its default option of traditional search results with its AI Mode. At least that’s what Google lead product manager Logan Kilpatrick hinted at when he responded to the suggestion on X.
AI Mode blends Google’s Gemini AI with real-time search for direct conversational answers instead of the familiar list of links. AI Mode is a tab in Google Search and has just received a dedicated homepage at google.com/ai, which contributes to the believability of Kilpatrick’s comments.
The change could have enormous consequences for how people find information online, and for the websites that rely on Google to send them traffic. Publishers have already reported declines due to Google’s AI Overviews, which often answer users’ questions directly without requiring them to click through to another site. If AI Mode becomes the default, those effects may only grow.
Google Search vice president Robby Stein soon tried to calm those concerned about such a change. In his own X post, he wrote that he “wouldn’t read too much into this. we’re focusing on making it easy to access AI Mode for those who want it.”
Still, that comes off as vague enough to cover any move to change the default. Arguably, the writing’s already on the wall (of the homepage). Google has been upping exposure to its AI services for months. The features filter through Google Labs, but since then, AI Overviews and AI Mode have gone global, and Google has reported tens of millions of monthly active users of AI Mode this summer. The way Google treats AI Mode is as the next big thing, not just a side project.
AI Mode for all
If AI Mode does become the default, you might not notice much change at first. You’ll just see the synthesized answer as a much bigger part of the page, with links relegated to a dies panel. The long-term answer is more complicated because it’s also a massive shift in how information moves across the web below the surface.
Traditional Google Search is the basis for websites to get discovered. Links for everything from news outlets and recipe blogs to indie movie makers and government services rely on being visible in Google Search, not least for how they provide money to those websites. Research has shown that AI Overviews has hurt traffic to websites.
Google is the front door to the internet for billions of people. If they change the doormat, you can’t really go somewhere else. Sure, there are alternatives among search engines, but there’s a reason the verb for looking for something online is Google and not Bing.
For now, you can stick to classic search, but that might not be an option forever. AI Mode is coming, and Google will try to make it the basis for how people look for things online. How well it will do so might require a little more looking, perhaps ask DuckDuckGo first.
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erichs211@gmail.com (Eric Hal Schwartz)
