Google plans to make search even more AI-driven in 2025

In a recent earnings call, Google CEO Sundar Pichai expressed the company's plans to incorporate AI more deeply into its online search functionality.

"As AI continues to expand the universe of queries that people can ask, 2025 is going to be one of the biggest years for search innovation yet," Pichai said during his opening remarks.

Since the release of ChatGPT, Google has gradually shifted towards a more AI-driven search model, first introducing 'AI overviews' in May of 2024. The feature was released to mixed reception, with many users reporting inaccurate information and strange hallucinations. Such as recommending to add glue to pizza, or to stare at the sun for 'health benefits'. There are also concerns regarding how Google's AI overviews affect brand visibility, with many businesses reliant on search results to drive customer acquisition.

During the earnings call, Pichai further outlined the company's plans to pack AI features into Google's search functions. He particularly highlighted the technology's potential to evolve into a 'chatbot' style tool - allowing users to interact and ask follow up questions, as you would with current AI assistants.

"I think the [Search] product will evolve even more," said Pichai. "As you make it more easy for people to interact and ask follow-up questions, etc., I think we have an opportunity to drive further growth."

One of the key concerns for users is reliability. The tendency for AI chatbots to hallucinate or be confidently wrong is well-established among frequent users of the tools. If Google plans to expand AI-driven search further, it's possible that those errors will become magnified, to the detriment of audiences who are less informed about its limitations.

The prioritization of AI-driven over human content is also of increasing concern. While Google still maintains close to a 90% market share in search engines, it's becoming more common for users to head to social media platforms to find their search results. If the market begins to show a preference for human-driven search first, Google's new direction may end up pushing users even further towards such alternatives.

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