So it\u2019s working. Google claims that more than a billion people a month are searching with AI Mode, a separate tab on Google\u2019s website where links are even more peripheral. AI Mode queries are doubling every quarter.<\/p>\n Liz Reid, Google's head of search, walks on stage.<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n I spoke to Liz Reid after the keynote and asked her directly: How is she defining search? After a startled pause, she invokes Google\u2019s mission: \u201cCan you truly make information not just organized, but really useful and accessible to people?\u201d<\/p>\n The original Google, of course, assumed that the key to that mission was a thriving and open web. According to Reid\u2019s keynote speech, Google scrapes billions of web pages every day\u2014but now the point is to gather facts and insights for its personalized responses.<\/p>\n In the keynote presentation, Google showed how a search query can dispatch an armada of AI agents to create a kind of personalized website on the fly. \u201cWe\u2019re talking dynamic layouts, interactive widgets, entire experiences created just for you,\u201d said search VP Robby Stein. To answer a query on black holes, AI agents might whip up an interactive graphic explaining how they work. But information has to come from somewhere. The raw material for that was the hard work of cosmologists, science writers, and visual artists, none of whom are easily credited or surfaced. These types of creators\u2014and the web sites that hold their work\u2014seem to be the losers in this transition.<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, Reid disputes the theory that AI search is a giant rug-pull for the traditional web. \u201cSome people will skip over the AI response and go to links,\u201d she insists. \u201cOftentimes people will click on the AI view, and then click on the links within.\u201d I asked for metrics on how many people actually do that; Reid says Google doesn\u2019t share that data.<\/p>\n Some websites will suffer, she says\u2014those bottom feeders that offer generic content that an AI agent can easily duplicate. But she claims that original voices and uniquely reported or researched content will still find an audience. (Really? Tell that to news sites already devastated by AI Overviews.) \u201cWe\u2019re also learning in new ways how to think about what web content is relevant,\u201d she says, claiming that Google is at work sending users to those with \u201cfirsthand perspectives.\u201d I eagerly await that traffic.<\/p>\n Of course, another problem with getting a single AI-generated answer is that, like other AI models, Gemini can be wrong, or even make stuff up. \u201cThe technology is certainly not perfect by any stretch,\u201d Reid concedes, claiming that the errors and fabrications aren\u2019t as prevalent as before,<\/p>\n My final question to Reid was whether Google still holds search quality meetings like the one I attended in 2009. Reid, who has been at Google for more than two decades, says that they\u2019re now spread out over several meetings, but the goal is the same. \u201cAt the end of the day, there\u2019s still a human judgment,\u201d she told me. And no matter how much you hate AI, you\u2019ll probably use it. Overall searches, says Reid, are at a record high.<\/p>\n This is an edition of<\/em> Steven Levy\u2019s<\/strong><\/em><\/a> Backchannel newsletter<\/strong><\/a>. Read previous newsletters<\/em> here.<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Save StorySave this storySave StorySave this story It's been 17 years since I sat in on the iconic weekly search quality meeting in the Ouagadougou conference room at Google\u2019s Mountain View campus. That Thursday morning, around three dozen engineers, product managers, and executives sat at a table or sprawled on the floor to discuss why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50979,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-50978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"MOUNTAIN](\"https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/6a0f9c48f74f37eea5903499\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Backchannel-Liz-Reid-google-Business-2276585741.jpg\"\/)
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