The Big Shift: Google Wants Search to Model an AI Assistant in 2025

Google Search is transitioning before our very eyes. Enter a search query and you're likely to get results that seem generated by an AI assistant. Google CEO, Sundar Pichai noted this “journey” around AI, during the company’s earnings call on Tuesday. The start of that journey was AI overviews, a controversial and monumental shift signifying how Google delivers information to billions of Search users.

More in Store 

“As AI continues to expand the universe of queries that people can ask, 2025 is going to be one of the biggest years for search innovation yet,” continued Pichai during his opening remarks on the call. Pichai spoke about the next phase of Google’s plan to pack Search with AI features from the company’s research lab, DeepMind. The Search product is gradually becoming more like an AI assistant by browsing the internet for you, going through web pages, and returning answers. 

It's a far cry from a simple search system that gives you ten blue links. This move from Google has long been on the cards, especially after OpenAI released ChatGPT a couple of years ago. Expect the move to have a significant impact on websites that rely on Google’s traffic and businesses that buy ads on Google Search. 

Drawing Sad Faces 

As expected, not everyone is happy about Google’s decision, but they're going ahead with the decision. Responding to questions about the future of AI and Search, Pichai said “You can imagine the future with Project Astra.” This was a reference to DeepMind’s multimodal AI system, which can process live video from a camera or computer screen and answer user questions about what the AI sees in real-time.

Pichai didn't leave out Gemini Deep Research – an AI agent that takes several minutes to create long research reports. It is a feature Google believes could fundamentally shift how people use Google Search.

Helping Users with Improved Searches

According to Pichai, Google has a “clear sense” of the Search experiences it could create with another one of its AI agents, Project Mariner. It's a system designed to use the front end of websites on behalf of users, making it unnecessary for people to use websites themselves.

He went on to add that there could be an opportunity for users to interact more and ask follow-up questions with Google Search. Perhaps Pichai was referring to making the Search interface more like a chatbot.

With ChatGPT used by millions of users each week, Google is hard-pressed to step up its game, because it could potentially play second fiddle to OpenAI. By injecting AI features directly into Search, Google is building a competitor that can compete with the best.