By Michael Lietke
As part of our efforts to provide immediate expertise as we strengthen our small competitors, Google is updating its ubiquitous search engine with next-generation artificial intelligence technologies.
The company announced Wednesday that it could feed more complex questions involving subjects such as computer coding and mathematics to send Gemini 2.0 AI models to search engines.
As has been the case since May last year, AI-generated overviews are placed on traditional web links that have become the lifeblood of online publishers that rely on traffic referrals from Google’s dominant search engines.
Google is expanding its audience for its American AI overview without requiring teen searchers to perform a special sign-in process to check.
This stage is also set to what turned out to be one of the most dramatic changes to the search engine interface, as Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin started their company in Silicon Valley Garage in the late 1990s.
Google will begin to gradually deploy its “AI Mode” option, allowing search engines to generate more AI overviews. If searching is in AI mode, Google warns that the overview is likely to be more conversational, and may head towards online corridors that bring about the falsehoods the tech industry has e-musically called “hastiques.”
“Like early stage AI products, we don’t always get it right,” wrote Robby Stein, vice president of products at Google, in a blog post that acknowledged the possibility that some reactions may unintentionally receive personas or appear to reflect a certain opinion.
There should be more stringent guardrails in place to prevent AI modes from leading people in the wrong direction for queries that include health and finance.
The need for additional tweaks is one of the reasons Google first offers AI modes only in the Experiment Lab section, allowing only subscribers of Google One AI Premium, which costs $20 per month, to be tested first.
However, these tests will most likely result in the technology being released to all comers. This is the goal Google is pursuing in response to AI-powered search engines from CHATGPT and Prperxity.
An expanded use of Google’s more sophisticated AI overview could amplify the concern that the summary would further reduce the likelihood that web surfers would click on a link to go to a site with useful information about the topic.
These traffic referrals are one of the main ways that online publishers can attract the clicks they need to sell digital ads that will help them raise business funding.
Google executives argue that AI overview promotes traffic to other sites by increasing people’s curiosity, and therefore encourages traffic by asking more questions and learning more.
But these security has further enriched the internet empire, which has already generated more than $260 billion in annual advertising revenue, without publishers that Google believes to be the main beneficiary of AI overviews.
The expanded use of AI overview may be exposing Google to allegations last year that federal judges are abusing the power of search engines that have been found to be illegal monopoly in an attempt to maintain their status as the Internet’s main gateway.
The U.S. Department of Justice, which filed an exclusive claim against Google in 2020, is currently proposing a partial dissolution of the company, including selling Chrome browsers, as part of its punishment. The proposed penalty hearing against Google could include a deeper dive into AI use, but is expected to begin in Washington, DC next month
Online education online service Chegg has already amplified its monopoly case in a lawsuit filed last month in the same Washington court that accused Google of inappropriately cribbing information from its site into AI overviews. Google has denied the allegation.
Original issue: March 5th, 2025, 3:18pm EST
