Posts Tagged → google

Google’s AI Search Mode: What It Means for Users and Creators

Google recently announced the integration of an AI Mode into its search engine, powered by the Gemini 2.0 model. This update aims to provide more advanced and conversational responses directly in the search results.

Frankly, I’m not surprised. The only surprise is that it took Google this long. ChatGPT has had a similar feature for a while, and Perplexity is entirely built around this concept. The old Google search model — where you get a list of links and manually sift through them — is starting to feel outdated. It’s much easier to type a question and have AI read the web for you, distilling an answer. Clearly, Google sees the writing on the wall.

While AI search is convenient, it raises an important question: Should we rely solely on AI-generated answers, or should we take the time to review the original sources?

A good AI-powered search experience should transparently cite sources and allow users to verify the information themselves. Without clear attribution, there’s a risk of misinformation or misinterpretation. As consumers, we should demand better citation methods and more transparency from these AI search engines.

As for content creators like me, there is a risk in this transition. If AI summarizes my article but users never visit my website, site traffic drops. And when traffic drops, so does monetization and eventually the lights go out. Google claims that its AI-generated overviews will increase curiosity and drive more traffic to original sources, but I’m skeptical. (AP News)

Right now, I don’t have any easy answers for how creators should adapt. The entire ecosystem —advertising, subscriptions, and direct engagement —could shift significantly as AI search becomes more dominant.

Getting back to the point though, AI-powered search is where things are headed, and Google’s involvement solidifies that fact. But as both users and creators, we need to be mindful of transparency, accuracy, and the sustainability of the web.

Google and AI Search

The Information is reporting that Google plans to add “AI Mode” to its search. This is not a surprise if you’ve spent any time with Perplexity or ChatGPT search; they’re both leaps and bounds ahead of traditional Google Search. Moreover, Google’s Gemini is pretty good, and I expect that it could be a real contender if they put it to work with their search engine.

However, the point is that it would be a contender and not the clear market leader. I remember the old days when we had a lot of search engines, and then Google wiped them all out overnight. I don’t think that will be the case with this next arms race of search engines. Google will be one of several good engines from which we’ll be able to choose. Hopefully, this leads to lots of innovation and the end of the search monopoly.

Gemini’s iPhone Launch Shows Google’s AI Ambitions

Gemini, Google’s flagship AI model, has landed on the iPhone, marking another significant move in the increasingly competitive AI assistant landscape. The app brings the full suite of Gemini’s capabilities to iOS users, including conversational AI similar to ChatGPT, image generation through Imagen 2, and deep integration with Google’s ecosystem of apps and services.

The mobile release is particularly noteworthy given the current tech landscape, where platform exclusivity has become more common. Google’s choice to develop for iOS highlights its determination to compete in the AI space. Google appears keen to establish Gemini as a serious contender against established players like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.

The app is free to use and includes access to both Gemini Pro and, for Google One AI Premium subscribers.

This finally gives me the kick I need to spend more time evaluating Gemini.

Specific vs. General Artificial Intelligence

The most recent episode of the Ezra Klein podcast includes an interview with Google’s head of DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, whose AlphaFold project was able to use artificial intelligence to predict the shape of proteins essential for addressing numerous genetic diseases, drug development, and vaccines.

Before the AlphaFold project, human scientists, after decades of work, had solved around 150,000 proteins. Once AlphaFold got rolling, it solved 200 million protein shapes, nearly all proteins known, in about a year.

I enjoyed the interview because it focused on Artificial Intelligence to solve specific problems (like protein folds) instead of one all-knowing AI that can do anything. At some point in the future, a more generic AI will be useful, but for now, these smaller specific AI projects seem the best path. They can help us solve complex problems while at the same time being constrained to just those problems while we humans figure out the big-picture implications of artificial intelligence.

A Tale of Two Tech Giants

Today we got news of Microsoft adding Split View, Do Not Disturb, smart folders, and more to the most recent version of Microsoft Outlook for iPhone and iPad.

Meanwhile, Google Docs lingers. I continue to be amazed at the impressive attention Microsoft gives to Apple platforms in comparison to Google. Several years ago, I would’ve been shocked by it. These days, I expect it.

This shouldn’t be surprising, given the two companies’ relative positions as the outside platforms. The days of windows versus Mac are officially over. That is not so true on mobile.

Google Docs and the iPad


Today I received a pleasant surprise when Google issued an update to Google Docs and Google Sheets finally enabling split screen.

In this case the “finally” term is merited. Apple first announced split screen in June 2015. It took Google 14 months to update these apps for split screen. I’d love to hear the story behind why it took so long but suspect we never will. During those 14 months, Microsoft Office for iOS got a lot better and I began to seriously question Google’s commitment to iOS.

While it’s nice that these apps support split screen on the iPad Pro, I’m not holding my breath that they’ll be getting lots of attention going forward.

As a writing tool, there isn’t a lot to love about Google Docs. However it does have one advantage … and it’s a big one. Google Documents has is the rock-solid ability for multiple people to access and edit a document simultaneously. While they’ve tried, neither Apple’s Pages nor Microsoft Word come close to matching Google Docs on this feature. Quip was interesting, but they’ve been acquired and Dropbox Paper looks promising, but it is still early days.

If anything, the examples set by Quip and Dropbox Paper is that it is possible for other companies to compete in this collaboration space but Google remains king of this hill. I’m hoping that doesn’t remain the case forever because Google’s been pretty lukewarm about the iPad for the past 14 months or so.