Google Search is being reimagined for the AI period. Because the curiosity engine of the world adjustments itself to tackle altering person wants and challenges of recent incumbents, Nandagopal Rajan spoke to Elizabeth Reid, VP, Head of Google Search, on the sidelines of Google I/O concerning the altering search panorama, AI Overviews and its impression on on-line enterprise, as the brand new AI Mode being launched this week. Edited excerpts from the interview:
IE: What are the behavioural adjustments you might be seeing in customers in occasions of AI overviews?
Reid: We’re seeing a few totally different behaviour adjustments. First, individuals are looking out extra. Individuals consider questions, however they don’t all the time ask them. They resolve, is it price their time? Is it going to be too arduous? Is it going to work? And it’s form of like a cut up second calculation. With AI Overviews, as a result of it’s answering new varieties of questions, individuals be taught over time and begin asking extra of the questions as a result of they’ve confidence they’ll get the response. The second factor is, we significantly see this with form of these longer, tougher questions; individuals will usually ask extra questions round the best way to do one thing. We’re seeing extra looking out general.
IE: We get the sense that lots of people don’t wish to do a deep dive, they only wish to see the AI Overview, as a result of that’s the gist of what they have been in search of. Is {that a} realisation you might have additionally had?
Reid: When individuals are available with a query, we wish to make sure that we give them an awesome response. However usually they arrive in with the concept they solely have one query, after which, primarily based on the response, they get intrigued to be taught extra. So they could dive in deeper on an online web page, or they could resolve they will ask one other query accordingly. We see that the clicks to net pages when AI Overviews exist are of upper high quality. Individuals spend extra time on these pages and interact extra. They’re expressing larger satisfaction with the responses once we present the AI Overviews. However the final take a look at is, are you prepared to choose up your cellphone an additional time immediately to ask a query? And in order that’s actually nice to see.
Elizabeth Reid, VP and head of Google Search, onstage at I/O 2025. (Picture: Nandagopal Rajan/The Indian Specific)
IE: As you might be re-imagining search, are you seeing a optimistic or unfavorable change within the enterprise fashions, as a result of a number of on-line depends on search.
Reid: AI Overviews are designed to be a part of the primary search expertise, and our confirmed enterprise mannequin there has actually continued to work. At this level, AI Overviews is utilized by over 1.5 billion customers every month, and our queries proceed to develop and our income continues to develop. And as we glance to AI Mode, we’ve confidence that that enterprise mannequin can proceed. I feel the advertisements will get extra related and the web sites we be extra hyper related. Individuals will ask extra particular questions. However then there’s nonetheless a number of selection, and when there are lot of decisions, there continues to be a possibility for advertisements, and we’re trying ahead to beginning to take a look at that in AI Mode. However first we needed to get the product proper.
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IE: AI Overviews for a particular question, is that getting higher every time, or is it nearly all the time the identical?
Reid: We now have made a number of developments since we rolled it out a 12 months in the past. It could actually get higher with an improve within the mannequin — we’re speaking about rolling out Gemini 2.5 extra; however inside it, we proceed to positive tune it. We now have raters who assist us perceive the best way to enhance the factuality, the best way to enhance the helpfulness. Bringing in new options like when are photographs related add to the usefulness of the response. Pace is de facto paramount. We talked immediately about how AI Overviews are the quickest AI responses, as a result of in search, individuals anticipate a really fast response. We all know if we take too lengthy, individuals get aggravated, and so they don’t search as a lot. So velocity has been one thing we’ve additionally been laser targeted on, and has been getting higher over time.
IE: Is Deep Search a response to how customers are perhaps transferring to AI platforms for lots of their queries? Have you ever been a bit late to this sport?
Reid: Deep Search is known as a recognition that there’s this commerce off on how thorough you need the response to be primarily based in your wants. So AI Mode, generally, will take a query, it should break it up into totally different matters, it should problem a bunch of search queries and that’s nice for lots of use instances. If, nevertheless, you might be doing one thing that you simply actually would have spent like hours of analysis on, you might be prepared to attend quite a lot of seconds, so you will get form of a extra in depth response. So we’ve seen a number of optimistic suggestions, generally, with Deep Analysis in Gemini, and that skill to go deeper and actually give a considerate response. So we’re bringing these capabilities into AI Mode.
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IE: Is AI Mode going to be the house for all AI in search, or would you might have AI Overviews together with your common search as it’s now?
Reid: We anticipate most individuals will nonetheless proceed to work together with AI by means of AI Overviews. AI Overviews isn’t going away, Search continues to be going to be the place to return for many of your queries. AI Mode is for when you might have a tougher query, otherwise you wish to ask numerous comply with up questions, you’re feeling like your query actually wants the leading edge mannequin.
IE: Is search engine marketing lifeless?
Reid: Individuals have many alternative interpretations of search engine marketing. Are you producing actually top quality content material for individuals? Do you create nice web sites that folks will love studying? That’s the greatest search engine marketing, proper? As a result of in the end in order for you individuals to return to your web site, you need to produce content material that folks wish to learn. And in order that type of good search engine marketing nonetheless continues. It’s nonetheless about that sense of manufacturing content material the place you might have authentic commentary, the fascinating perspective, you might have gone in depth, then individuals who wish to proceed to learn them.
Google I/O 2025 opening keynote was held in Mountain View, California, US on Could 20. (Picture: Nandagopal Rajan/The Indian Specific)
IE: Is there a necessity for web sites, publishers, information to form of begin optimising for the AI period? Or is the AI fashions adequate to scan by means of good content material and work out what’s greatest and what to push into the readers?
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Reid: Greater than interested by the AI, I might consider it as evolving to fulfill individuals’s expectations. What do they really need? They need extra of that genuine story. They usually care about photographs or movies or different methods and never a number of textual content, and generally they need these experiences. So you need to optimise for why would someone wish to go to your web site? And that that’s actually the main focus… constructing nice content material for individuals.
IE: Within the keynote, there was point out about SynthID, however is there a concern that a number of the queries or the solutions which might be developing with search may truly be generated by AI within the not so distant future, and then you definitely go into this digital cycle of AI Overviews working on prime of AI content material.
Reid: What actually issues is the content material high quality. Photographs are an awesome place for AI technology because it means that you can convey your imaginative and prescient to life. However if you’re making an attempt to do one thing that appears prefer it’s masking actuality, after which that’s not as helpful, proper? And so the best way we take into consideration AI in search is that we wish creators and web site to provide top quality content material, and AI could be a useful gizmo for them, however you need to use it as a device to provide nice high quality content material. If AI creates spam, then we are going to proceed as we’ve labored for years to make sure that the quantity of spam that will get by means of on search could be very small — lower than 1% — and we are going to proceed to give attention to that.
IE: So that you talked about immediately that AI Overviews are actually coming to extra languages. Is the potential of AI Overviews within the newer languages just like what it’s in English? Or is is that going to occur on a lesser share of queries.
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Reid: It actually is dependent upon the language itself. By way of the p.c of queries, the bar that we use for once we present is this mixture of how top quality is the AI response and the way a lot worth add does it have with the remainder of the web page. So in some locations, it could actually truly present up greater than within the US, as a result of maybe the quantity of content material on the net in that language was smaller to start with, and so then it might be including extra worth. AI Overviews can assist you with questions for which the content material is in a unique language than the language you ask that query in. It can be affected by the varieties of questions you ask. In case you have a rustic the place they’re asking a number of questions that actually profit from the overview, then you definitely’ll get extra. In case you have a rustic that’s doing a number of looking for a web site by identify after which you’ll have much less.
When you return to the mission, it was this concept that data ought to be universally accessible. It doesn’t say, so long as you communicate the language. Now, with AI Overviews, you may ask the query in your language. We are able to discover content material in different languages, reply to you in a approach that you simply perceive in your language after which provide you with a hyperlink to these web sites. Now these web sites could be in one other language, however in the event you click on by means of with Google Translate, you may nonetheless go to the unique content material, however see it translated in your language. So I feel that’s thrilling about AI, that it breaks down a bunch of the language obstacles.
IE: Is there any change in your stand that information will not be the place you’ll need AI Overviews?
Reid: Our common technique for AI Overviews is that they need to be extraordinarily top quality, and so we’ve achieved much less on arduous information at first, as a result of we predict that freshness and accuracy is de facto vital in a number of these instances. So we wish to be certain that in the event you have been ever to go there, you could depend on AI Overviews. And in order that’s why we’ve began with out information. We now have nice issues on that web page which might be assembly individuals’s wants.
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IE: The world over, publishers are seeing an enormous dip of their site visitors coming from Search due to AI Overviews. Is {that a} part, or is that the longer term?
Reid: There are a lot of research, we ought to be cautious with that information. We wish to be certain that AI Overviews permits individuals to proceed to hook up with web sites and we’re seeing a better range of internet sites that individuals are clicking by means of. Possibly earlier than that the question solely went to 1 web site, however now we’re capable of floor new websites, and clicks are going to a bunch of various websites, and people clicks are actually of top of the range.
The creator is in California on the invite of Google.