As it continues to embrace AI in spite of concerns about its ad-based economic model, Google was bolstering internet searches with even more generative AI.

Speaking at the company's annual developers’ event, CEO Sundar Pichai boasted that "decades of research" were coming to fruition with the new technology, announcing that Google's search engine would have a new AI mode.

Beyond the previously introduced AI Overviews, which show responses to enquiries from the tech giant's generative AI capabilities above the conventional blue links to websites and advertisements, the search engine's embryonic AI mode goes farther.

"New AI mode is a total reimagining of search with more advanced reasoning," Pichai stated as he opened the Silicon Valley conference.

You can ask longer and more complex queries and you can go further with follow-up questions."

Google head of search Liz Reid described the freshly unveiled AI mode, now available in the United States, as a powerful tool with advanced reasoning, multi-modality, and the ability for users to dive deeper into searches.
It searches across the entire web, going way deeper than the traditional search.

Since Google debuted AI Overviews in search results at its developers conference a year ago, it has grown to more than 1.5 billion users across several countries, according to Pichai.

"That means Google Search is bringing Gen AI to more people than any other product in the world," Pichai says.

Google's push into generative AI comes amid intensifying competition with OpenAI's ChatGPT, which has itself incorporated search engine features into its popular chatbot.

Despite continuous difficulties in preventing misinformation, developing clear business models, and having no clear idea of how the technology will impact society, both businesses are producing new AI products at a rapid pace.

There are worries among analysts that the company's core revenue-generating advertisements may become less prevalent as Google search shifts from pages of "blue links" to summaries produced by artificial intelligence.

The possible extinction of Google search links, which have served as the primary entry point to the internet for the past 20 years, has also alarmed website publishers, including news outlets and Wikipedia, which risk a sharp decline in visitors.