Searching the Internet is dead (blame Google) - long live AI answers?

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Thirty years ago, searching the Internet was more a case of finding a web site you knew about by looking for it in Yahoo! - then a manually curated hierarchical directory, with categories and sub-categories.

Twenty years ago, the first decent search engines had appeared, led by Google (to 'Google' something became a verb), with minimal page furniture, no bloat, no adverts. Just search matches that were accurate and relevant, fed by a few keywords that you typed in. Yahoo's directories were still used by many, plus DMOZ, started by the people now behind the likes of the Firefox browser.

Ten years ago, searching the Internet was still search-engine-driven, though with adverts and sponsored panels here and there. Monetisation was beginning to happen. The start of a slippery slope?

In 2025, a simple Google search will now typically get you a full page of 'sponsored results', made to look exactly like search results and thus capturing most peoples' clicks. To those who know better, you have to look below the 'AI overview' (if there is one), then below the sponsored results and, if you're lucky, there will be a few genuine and useful search results on page '2', tucked in around suggested relevant videos from YouTube. It's a far cry from the days of Google's minimalist beginnings. And even then you'll have to visit each search match and parse the adverts and pop-ups there.



Happily, I'd like to suggest that the aforementioned 'AI overview', increasingly now offered, is the way forward for most people, most of the time. At least, until they start monetising this too. Because AI here tries to understand what you're actually asking for and comes up with a plain English answer. Without you having to skip past adverts and videos and multiple sites, each with part of an answer that you're looking for.

Everything within me screams 'No, not more AI, it's over-hyped!' But while it is over-hyped in many areas of life, it is also proving to have genuine uses. In this case, improving searching the Internet.

For example, I just searched for "What's the difference between vegan leather and mycelium leather?" and got a splendid two page essay giving everything I needed and more. And offering to do a deeper delve if I had specific extra questions. Very impressive.

And yes, I know that AI-derived answers have to be sanity and fact-checked, especially if you're Googling something current or contentious, but for 95% of the things I search for online, Google's free Gemini 'AI overview' (use the small summary in usual results and then click 'Dive deeper in AI mode' - or use my link to go directly) or Open AI's ChatGPT are delivering quickly and efficiently. And saving me a lot of time.

So, who needs sponsored results and ads and relevant videos anymore? Aren't they redundant in terms of user eyeballs in 2025? Using the power of machines to not only find the answers I want, but also present them to me in seconds in easily digestible form is the way to go, I think. For now, anyway!


Comments

Dave Rich said…
Agree, we are certainly going through another period of change. I wonder how many AI agents are actually taking the search away from the search engines. I will now use ChatGPT to answer questions I would have googled not so long ago. I find paid AI subscriptions help, I can't see search lasting in its current form.
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