MOUNTAIN VIEW, California – For 25 years, Google’s iconic search box was a long, slender bar where people typed in keywords like “World Cup”.
But over the past three years, artificial intelligence allowed people to type in longer, more complex questions like “Who are the top 24 teams in the World Cup, and what chance does the United States have of advancing?”
On May 19, Google said the AI shift inspired it to overhaul its search bar for the first time since 2001. The box is getting bigger and more interactive so that people can ask even longer questions and upload photographs and videos into queries.
In addition, people can ask follow-up questions with a chatbot on Google’s main search page. The company will also offer digital assistants, known as agents, to automate searches so that someone who might be apartment hunting can get notified of a new listing without opening a real estate site like Zillow.
The search features will be powered by a new AI model, Gemini 3.5 Flash. Google said the model has improved on creating software code and performing autonomous tasks, works faster and is less expensive to run than comparable models.
Mr Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said Gemini’s speed and affordability made it possible to deliver it broadly – which will ultimately benefit Google.
“When people use our AI-powered features in search, they use search more,” Mr Pichai said in an interview on May 19 before Google’s annual developer conference, where the changes to search and Gemini 3.5 anchored a nearly two-hour showcase of AI-powered products from the company, including a new video tool, an internet shopping cart and a system to autonomously read and draft emails.
Google is using AI to burrow into more pockets of the digital economy. Web summaries generate more searches, while longer queries provide more insight into users and new shopping features make it easier to connect customers with retailers.
Mr Richard Kramer, a financial analyst with Arete Research, said the changes were helping Google make more money from advertising.
In 2024, Google’s ad clicks rose 6 per cent, and it charged 7 per cent more for each click. The company’s annual profit has more than doubled since 2022 to US$132 billion (S$169 billion). NYTIMES
