Google has detonated the foundation of the internet. Search, the product that defined the company and shaped how the web is navigated, is being re-engineered from the ground up. The blue links that funnel more than $500bn (R9-trillion) in digital advertising are being pushed aside in favour of something more ambitious: an AI system that interprets, reasons and acts.
The announcement came at Google I/O 2025, the company’s annual developer conference in San Francisco.
“This is the most profound shift in Search since Google was founded,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet, in opening the keynote. “We’ve always been about understanding the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. But with AI, we now have the ability to do this in more powerful ways than ever before.”
The shift is powered by Gemini, Google’s most advanced large language model, and centres on two interconnected products: AI Overviews, which have already launched, and AI Mode, a new conversational interface that begins rolling out later this year.
AI Overviews replace the familiar search results list with dynamically generated answers. When a user types a question in natural language, Gemini breaks it down into component parts, identifies relevant content and composes a complete, reasoned response.
Most significantly, it doesn’t first point users to links, unless they scroll down. It responds with what it calculates to be the answer. This is expected to be a complete reframing of how people access knowledge and make decisions online.
At the heart of this strategy is Google’s long-held ambition to scale access to information universally. During a media briefing at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, on Wednesday, Pichai told Business Times he grew up in India at a time when people there had to wait five years for a landline phone. “But mobile enabled access to [phones for] most of the country’s population,” he said, comparing that tech revolution to AI today.
“At Google, we care about not just providing continuous AI, but we work so hard because we have products like Search to take AI and make it accessible to billions of people. Just imagine the power of AI Mode. You know how Search is transforming itself: that’s going to be available to everyone around the world. Someone in South Africa is going to get the same experience as someone here living in California.”
The most detailed explanation of what’s changing came from Elizabeth Reid, Google vice-president and general manager of Search, who led the product unveilings on stage.
“We’re reimagining Search in three important ways,” she said. “First, helping you with questions that are harder to solve today — those that require reasoning or multiple steps. Second, helping you when you’re not even sure what to ask, with tools that let you explore complex topics. And third, helping you actually get things done.”
This is not about making the search box smarter. It’s about making the entire experience intelligent
— Elizabeth Reid, head of Google Search
AI Mode builds on that foundation. It allows users to hold a persistent, back-and-forth conversation with Search, with Gemini keeping track of context, refining results and proposing logical next steps. Reid said the entire system had been rebuilt from the ground up.
“It’s grounded in real-time, multistep reasoning. It’s built on our latest Gemini models. And it’s designed to be helpful by default.”
She demonstrated how a vague query about planning a camping trip with dietary needs and children could evolve into a complete itinerary with meal suggestions, accommodation booking links, and a weather forecast, all generated in a few conversational turns.
“This is not about making the search box smarter,” she said. “It’s about making the entire experience intelligent.”
Pichai reinforced the importance of this evolution as a platform-level transformation. “I think the next generation of kids are going to have access to knowledge in a way no generation has previously had,” he told Business Times. “They are going to be able to create things in a way no generation before them has been able to. So all of that is exciting. I can’t imagine a better opportunity with this AI technology.”
That opportunity extends beyond Search. Gemini is being integrated into Android, where it replaces Google Assistant with an all-purpose system assistant that can summarise, write, analyse and navigate across apps. In ChromeOS, it functions as a persistent reasoning layer. In Workspace, it will automate tasks across Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Meet. It will generate drafts, build presentations, summarise inboxes and capture meetings.
This deeper integration signals a new model of computing, where the app interface fades and the AI assistant becomes the operating environment.
“We’re moving from products that you use, to partners that help you,” said Pichai. “Gemini is at the heart of this — helping people create, code, learn and get things done faster than ever before.”
This shift raises inevitable questions about economics and discoverability. If Gemini is generating answers, where does that leave publishers who previously relied on link traffic?
Shashi Thakur, Google vice-president and GM of Search Ads, tackled the concerns directly. “There are ads above the AI Overview. There are ads below it. And now, we’re testing ads inside the overview itself,” he said during a briefing session.
Rather than merely being placements in new slots, ads will be driven by Gemini’s ability to analyse sub-intents behind complex questions, a process Google calls “fan-out”. For example, a question about flying with a dog may unpack multiple subtopics: airline regulations, pet safety, travel bags. Ads are placed in relation to these latent signals, rather than keyword matches.
Thakur said users are engaging more deeply with these results. Queries are longer, more specific, and more commercially meaningful. Advertisers using the new AI Max tools, which integrate Gemini logic into campaign targeting, are reporting a 27% lift in conversions without raising spend.
Asked by Business Times whether developing countries such as South Africa should chart their own course for AI, Pichai put localisation in the context of addressing regional demands.
“There are always going to be country-specific needs,” he said. “I would hope the South African government figures out how it can use AI to innovate and improve services for its citizens. There’ll be local start-ups. One of the powers of our platform is we’re not just building consumer products; we’re doing APIs [application programming interfaces]. So entrepreneurs in Africa, in Indonesia, in India, in Brazil; they all can use these things. And that’s the power of the technology.”
In effect, Google is no longer offering a search engine in the traditional sense, but an intent engine: a reasoning system that interprets what the user is trying to achieve. The payoff is a more natural user experience, deeper engagement and a vigorous response to recent market jitters about AI undermining Search. It turns out that, instead, it is reinventing search.
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