Google Solidifies Itself as an AI Heavyweight After Overhauling Its Search Experience

IBL News | New York

Using the Gemini 3.5 Flash model, Google is increasing its search box size and making it more interactive so that people can ask even longer questions, upload photographs and videos into queries, and ask follow-up questions.

It’s the first overhaul of its iconic search bar in 25 years, since 2001, prompted by the rise of AI.

In addition to adding a chatbot on the main search page, Google will also offer digital assistants, or agents, to automate searches.

For example, someone apartment hunting can be notified of a new listing without opening the real estate website Zillow.com.

Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, said at the company’s annual developer conference in Mountain View, Calif., this month, “When people use our AI in search, they use search more.”

This move shows that Google has solidified its position as an AI heavyweight.

In addition to its Gemini models, it is producing AI chips and pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into data centers for its cloud computing business.

Its Gemini app, which can do coding and research, now has 900 million active users — about the same number as ChatGPT.

Analysts say that these changes are helping Google make more money from advertising. Last year, Google’s ad clicks rose 6 percent, and it charged 7 percent more for each click. The company’s annual profit has more than doubled since 2022 to $132 billion.

On searches that deliver AI Overviews, people can ask follow-up questions in AI Mode, which Mr. Pichai called “a revelation.”

Google is also bringing one of AI’s biggest breakthroughs — software coding — to search.

Google said it was introducing an alternative to the agents powered by Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex.

Called Gemini Spark, the service is embedded in Gmail, Docs, and other Google products, where it can turn meeting notes spread across emails and chats into a single document. It can also read and draft emails.

Google’s AI-driven shopping cart will also recommend discounts when products go on sale and warn people when they select items that could be incompatible.

Koray Kavukcuoglu, the chief technology officer at Google DeepMind, the company’s AI lab, said that “plugging Gemini into Google’s products will help the company stay ahead of competitors by providing information about users’ needs.”

 

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