Google has become so integral to online navigation that its name became a verb, meaning “to find things on the Internet.” Soon, Google might just tell you what’s on the Internet instead of showing you. The company has announced an expansion of its AI search features, powered by Gemini 2.0. Everyone will soon see more AI Overviews at the top of the results page, but Google is also testing a more substantial change in the form of AI Mode. This version of Google won’t show you the 10 blue links at all—Gemini completely takes over the results in AI Mode.

This marks the debut of Gemini 2.0 in Google search. Google announced the first Gemini 2.0 models in December 2024, beginning with the streamlined Gemini 2.0 Flash. The heavier versions of Gemini 2.0 are still in testing, but Google says it has tuned AI Overviews with this model to offer help with harder questions in the areas of math, coding, and multimodal queries.

With this update, you will begin seeing AI Overviews on more results pages, and minors with Google accounts will see AI results for the first time. In fact, even logged out users will see AI Overviews soon. This is a big change, but it’s only the start of Google’s plans for AI search.

Gemini 2.0 also powers the new AI Mode for search. It’s launching as an opt-in feature via Google’s Search Labs, offering a totally new alternative to search as we know it. This custom version of the Gemini large language model (LLM) skips the standard web links that have been part of every Google search thus far.

  • Rooty@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    4 hours ago

    I’m decrepit enough to remember pre-Google web, with competing search engines. Bring back webrings!

  • wise_pancake@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    3 hours ago

    So what happens to the situation of having to pay ad-word rent on your own brand name?

    Do we still get that with AI search, or is Google going to give up their golden goose of ad revenue. I’m guessing the adwords feed into the background RAG that influences what the model says.

    • melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      241·
      12 hours ago

      fascists really love LLM’s. like ridiculously in love with them. it’s where all their ‘art’ comes from. it’s made of the shallow aesthetics with no interiority they love so much. plus it doesn’t really require articulating your desires much, or having artists.

      • andros_rex@lemmy.worldEnglish
        131·
        10 hours ago

        To borrow Alex Jones’ term - it is information warfare. Train people to accept the outputs of LLMs, attack media literacy (in conjunction with the fact that public schools in the US spent ten years not teaching children how to read), and hide actual sources.

        You can have your LLM trained to weasel around the fact that the chattel slavery of black Americans was the primary cause of the Civil War, or falsely represent science surrounding gender and sexuality (they’re explicitly tuning Grok on this).

        You don’t have to worry about subversive messages on war or women in your “AI” generated “Ghibhli” film. Have all the fun space faring of Star Wars, without the prequel geopolitics everyone hated until they saw it happen.

    • Bloomcole@lemmy.worldEnglish
      81·
      10 hours ago

      They did that long before AI.
      Google, Apple and plenty others have regular meetings with defense people to accomodate them.
      No surprise Eric Schmit left Google to form a defense company since some employees there had a consciense and didn’t like working on killer drone programs.

  • GaMEChld@lemmy.worldEnglish
    123·
    15 hours ago

    I mean their search results have gone to absolute shit anyway, the AI is probably better at this point.

    • Rooty@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      4 hours ago

      My coworker who has an absolute hard-on for ChatGPT has tried several times in vain to get it to say the correct answer to a question I knew the answer to. LLMs are bullshit engines and toys for the malicious.

  • grumt@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4·
    14 hours ago

    Been using 4get for some time now, I don’t think a search engine can get better than this

    • arcterus@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      71·
      13 hours ago

      I looked into this a while back and came to the conclusion that the dev didn’t seem trustworthy. Also, just looking on the homepage, the images it showed me were a dildo with “4get” stuck on it using a sticky note and a modified manga panel about beating women. Not sure I’d want to use something like that in public.

      • grumt@lemmy.mlEnglish
        4·
        13 hours ago

        yeah, the dev seems kinda like a shitposter ngl (although there are some funny pictures in the front page)

        However, I configured it as my default search engine, so I never go to the front page. Also, at least is free and open source (AGPL)

  • SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.orgEnglish
    11·
    18 hours ago

    Been using Ecosia for months now. DuckDuckGo and Startpage before that. I’m pretty happy with Ecosia search results, can’t complain.

    • BoxOfFeet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 hours ago

      I’ve been trying and bunch of the recommendations in the comments here with some very specific searches I’ve had to do this week with Google, and I think Ecosia is my favorite.

    • renlok@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      14 hours ago

      I’ve tried so many different search engines over the last year to try getting rid of Google and ecosia seems pretty good, also I still use yandex pretty often

  • GenosseFlosse@feddit.orgEnglish
    142·
    20 hours ago

    Ok, but why should I go to Google for ai answers when I can get the same from openai, other models or even local installations without all the ads?

    • kautau@lemmy.worldEnglish
      271·
      20 hours ago

      Unfortunately this isn’t about you, but the 90% of people who don’t understand what AI is at all and don’t give a shit where the responses come from as long as “scorpio dream meaning high school teacher truck” and “can you gregnant with cousin?” Give them answers they like

      /s to an extent, but here we are

  • oh_@lemmy.worldEnglish
    26·
    23 hours ago

    AI is over hyped and doesn’t need to be shoved in our faces. Ugh.

    • kautau@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      20 hours ago

      It’s another tech bubble like the dot com bubble. But at this point, the AI bubble, the crypto bubble, and the capitalism bubble will all crash at the same time as the world economy falls apart and we end up in another global war. I guess the accelerationists that survive will get their wish and see what remains and if it’s the neofuedalist white supremacy utopia they dream of