Google Search: The Web is me

Contents

The AI momentum. Ask YouTube. Voice-controlled live documents. The "world model" Gemini Omni. A revised AI watermark, SynthID. Another new AI model: Gemini 3.5 Flash. Version 2.0 of the Antigravity development environment. The AI agent Gemini Spark.

It is a little conspicuous how many, even secondary, topics Google CEO Sundar Pichai covered or had covered at his developer conference I/O before search was up. Only after a good three-quarters of an hour did Liz Reid, head of Google Search, take the stage to present the innovations in Google's core product.

One could almost get the impression that Google wanted to lull the audience at the keynote so that they wouldn't immediately understand what a bomb Google was about to detonate. Because the innovations in search can be understood as a kind of bomb, or as tante aptly puts it, “Google has declared war on the remnants of the web”.

Everything from a single source

Google Search is to become a complete AI platform. A completely revamped, multimodal input mask for information agents that monitor the web around the clock and proactively notify users. This includes automatic bookings and calls on behalf of the user, on-the-fly generated user interfaces and mini-apps for recurring tasks, and on top of that, deep integration of personal Google services such as Gmail, Photos, and Calendar. Google Search ceases to be a signpost. It becomes the destination.

For the rest of the web, Google is becoming an even more powerful gatekeeper – one that not only compares prices but also handles the purchase itself. Merchants and service providers can be glad if they are integrated into Google's ecosystem, into its cross-merchant “Universal Cart.” All in all, the new search looks like a new user interface for the rest of the web. An interface that Google controls.

Google is serious

Google took its time to overtake the competition in AI, but it also had the time and resources for it. OpenAI may have been the first company to release a chatbot. Nevertheless, one should not forget: the technical foundations come from Google. The “T” at the end of ChatGPT stands for the Transformer architecture, which was invented at Google.

Google develops its own AI chips, currently in the eighth generation, and is therefore less dependent on suppliers like Nvidia. It already operates its data centers in large numbers. Above all, among the major AI providers, it has much more direct contact with users: Google operates nine services alone with at least one billion users, foremost among them Search and Chrome. (For a detailed overview of the AI industry with a focus on finances, the presentation by Philipp Klöckner at OMR is recommended).

In short, Google has calmly observed how the chatbot market has developed. Now it is using its resources to roll up the market from behind – just as Microsoft did with its browser, for example, in the past.

Unregulatable

It's not that there are no attempts to break Google's market-dominating position. In the US, a federal court convicted Google last year for illegal monopoly in the search market; Google is therefore supposed to share search data with competitors.

In Europe, a similar procedure under the Digital Markets Act is nearing completion. By July, the EU Commission must make a binding decision on which search data Google must share with competitors. But the mills of courts and legislators grind very slowly. Google is running away from regulation and simply turning search into something else.

And the users? Surely some will finally have had enough of Google's paternalism and will run away from the industry giant or even from all major tech companies. However, it is to be expected that a large part will happily use the convenient offers that Google presents to them. The open web will then only be a fringe phenomenon for nerds.

Previously, “googling” meant “researching on the web.” In the future, it will probably have to be redefined as “doing something online.”

(jo)