The future of Google is a do-it-all search box

Last year, after watching the Google I/O keynote, I wrote that I felt like this The future of Google was Google googling. After watching this year’s I/O conference keynote on Tuesday, I don’t think Google wants to Google just for you — I think it wants to do this Everything For you, all from the search box.

Take the reliable one The Google search bar itselfwhich is something Google is generally reluctant to do, is to get some updates. It will expand “dynamically” as you write longer queries. It will offer “AI-powered suggestions” that Google claims will “bypass autocomplete,” potentially causing search blanks to be filled in a way you didn’t intend but that may or may not be useful.

Or how about what Google actually does It appears in search results? With AI Overviews, you can continue to ask questions in AI mode, which creates a personalized page with an AI-generated summary of what you’re looking for instead of showing you a traditional list of links. Your search results will also be more personalized because Google will be able to create a custom user interface for you, including creating things like interactive visuals and infographics directly within your search results page. You’ll also be able to ask Google, right from the search bar, to create “information agents” that can track things you’re interested in — like new sneaker drops or apartment listings — making the search bar a kind of AI-infused Google Alerts.

The Gemini gets a bunch of upgrades and features too. It can send you a “Daily Brief” that tells you about your day based on information from Google apps, like Gmail and Google Calendar. You can create custom agents powered by Google thanks to a feature It’s called Gemini Sparkwhich could have an advantage over proxies like OpenClaw because it’s Google’s first-party offering. The company has also recently made a major rift About interpersonal intelligencewhich pulls context from other Google apps that helps inform your responses from Gemini.

In Workspace, Google wants you to do just that Just chatter In tools like Gmail, Docs, and Keep, apps will help you with things like analyzing your inbox, drafting a document, or creating to-do lists. For new shopping Universal stroller It’ll track things you want to buy in apps like Search, Gemini, Gmail, and YouTube — and let you check out using Google’s payment infrastructure. And speaking of YouTube It is tested The AI-like experience is there too, as it will pull together a page of search results rather than just displaying a list of things to watch.

There’s more, too—with what’s new Gemini Omni models, You’ll be able to create a video using things like other videos, other photos, and audio as prompts. In the future, you will be able to create other media as well; The model family is supposed to be able to “create anything”.

I could go on; A lot was announced at I/O. But what I’m trying to get at here is that Google isn’t just showing you the location of the information anymore. Through various search boxes, he now answers your questions in the way he thinks is most useful. According to the most benevolent saying: If the matter is done well and accurately, then that is it He could Be very useful. But this means that it must be done well and carefully, and this is normal The bar is too high to clearespecially with complex search queries or questions about sensitive data like years of Gmail emails.

It’s not hard to imagine a future where, one day, Google will make everything happen in one universal search box. No more jumping between Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, Gemini – I think the current end state for Google is that you just type whatever you’re looking for into the Ask Google box, and Google will find a way to make it happen and show it to you in a personalized way.

Assuming that’s the case, that’s not something I want. The fun of the Internet is in doing the work to find things, even if it’s sometimes frustrating, difficult, or time-consuming. Sure, the idea of ​​talking to Gmail to get help finding things in my inbox sounds handy, but I’ve also spent years improving my email management system — a system that would work whether I used Gmail or not. It also works great for II think we should all follow the steps of discovering the systems throughout our digital lives that work best for us instead of just relying on Google to discover it all from one universal search box.

Google doing everything would also mean the collapse of much of the web that Google relies on. If Google Search is not sending traffic to publishers or websites that need visitors to make money – something that is already happening at a rapid rate, Thanks Google Zero! — What will the research learn from, and where will it direct people? If YouTube’s AI mode-like feature prevents people from browsing videos, how will creators who have lost their audience be able to support themselves to create more videos? Google may not care, as it increasingly seems to just want a search bar that can do it all, no matter the cost.