The Archive

In many circles, "Ask Chat" has replaced "Google it," and that's reflected in a new announcement from OpenAI: the volume of search queries run through ChatGPT now equals 20 percent of the volume run through Google. Adam Fry, OpenAI's consumer product lead for ChatGPT, made the announcement at a press event on Monday. He said the company defines a search as any time a user inputs a query that results in a web search, as opposed to tasks like defining a term or a simple how-to explanation. (Fry did not specify the source of the Google search volume number.) Having one-fifth as many searches as ...

Google is completely turning off Search in schools that reject its AI features, the company told The New York Times. The decision was also shared in a broader education-related update from Google on Tuesday, saying that access to Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom, and Google Search "will be entirely off" for K-12 student accounts unless "administrators explicitly turn them on." Administrators will not be given the option to toggle Gemini-powered features off without disabling Search, however. Chris Phillips, Google's vice president of education, tells the NYT, "Search and AI are de...

Schools choosing to restrict AI altogether will no longer be able to access Google Search, as AI features are now integrated into the search engine.

Meta's AI ad targeting grew faster than Google Search revenue in latest quarter, widening competitive gap.

Multi-horizon time-series forecasting study using LightGBM on Google Trends and COVID-19 data with entropy-based error metrics.

The new shopping tool is available in the U.S. across Google Search and the Gemini app.

Save all of the products you’re browsing in one place. | Image: Google Google's intelligent AI shopping cart is finally here, and just in time to tempt users into Black Friday and seasonal holiday spending. The Universal Cart tool Google previewed at its I/O event in May is now rolling out in the US across the Gemini app and Google Search, with the aim of making it easier to stay organized and save money when shopping online. As the name suggests, it's a "universal" digital cart that lets you save products from multiple retailers in a single unified space, and works across different Google pl...

Audit of ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Google Search AI product recommendations via 2,528 consumer queries reveals bias patterns across platforms.

Google Search adds race registration alerts and training plan features for runners; unrelated to Gemma or frontier AI.

Google Search adds live sports tracking and fantasy recommendations via Gemma, a consumer feature integration.

Google Search adds AI-powered travel booking features: hotel reservations, airfare tracking, and loyalty rewards integration.

Google Search tips for home decor shopping and DIY projects; consumer lifestyle content unrelated to frontier AI.

Google Search adds study features using AI; consumer-facing educational tools rather than frontier model capability.

Google Search AI Mode assists with offline activities like concert ticketing and event planning.

Google Search AI features generate menu and tablescape suggestions for dinner party planning.

Google is giving its AI note-taking app a new name. The company announced on Thursday that NotebookLM is becoming Gemini Notebook, but will remain a standalone app even as it integrates more deeply across Gemini and Google Search. Google first revealed Gemini Notebook - then called Project Tailwind - in May 2023 before widely releasing the app just months later. Over the past few years, Google has been adding new features to the app to help organize and make sense of your notes, such as the ability to summarize them as AI podcasts, narrated slideshows, and TikTok-style clips. It recently star...

Google must give rival AI assistants and search engines greater access to key parts of Android and Google Search after the European Union ordered the company to comply with the bloc's digital antitrust rules. The two decisions, handed down Thursday, could weaken Google's control over two of the tech industry's most important platforms and have far-reaching consequences for the company, shape the future of its AI tool Gemini, and open up new opportunities for rivals to gain ground. Google has until January 2027 to begin sharing search data and July 2027 to implement changes to Android. The rul...

You can see if ads on Google Search, Google Discover, and YouTube were made or edited using AI from a new section in Google's "My Ad Center," as reported earlier by TechCrunch. The update, announced on Thursday, adds a "created or edited with AI" label under the "how this ad was made" tab. Users can find it by tapping the three dots or info button on ads, which pulls up the same panel where you can also block or report ads. Google says it will automatically apply the AI label to any ads made with its own generative AI advertising tools, but AI ads made elsewhere will need to have the label ap...

More AI search in more places. AI is pretty reliable at putting things on your calendar these days, but it hasn't quite cracked answering the related and all-important question of "What should I do this weekend?" Meta's new AI Mode in search could be a useful tool - if it ever learns to stop getting stuff wrong. AI Mode is a new option when you hit the search bar in the Facebook app. It's designed to tackle complex queries - much like AI Mode in Google Search. But Meta's version draws on public posts across Meta apps - including Facebook Groups and Instagram Reels - to inform its results. Tha...

Google is rolling out "across the board" updates to NotebookLM. The AI-powered note-taking app now uses Google's upgraded Gemini 3.5 model, which will allow it to respond with "more accurate and reliable information," according to a blog post on Monday. Launched in 2023, NotebookLM allows you to interact with your notes and sources using AI, as well as ask questions about the materials. With this update, Google says you can start a research project by just asking NotebookLM questions about a topic, instead of importing notes or YouTube videos. NotebookLM will use Google Search to help you fin...

Uncover second-hand scores with AI tools in Google Search and Shopping.

I noticed that Claude Code was giving me a lot of unsolicited caveats with phrasing like "honest caveat" or "genuine caveat" when this kind of hedging was absolutely unnecessary. I figured other people might be seeing the same thing so my instinct was to use Google Ngram but the cutoff year of 2022 meant that I had to use a different method. So I used Google search with quotes around the phrase "honest caveat" and set the time bound to different time intervals and compared the number of search results as a proxy for how usage has changed over time in indexed pages. As it turns out, while del...

After Google Search's AI update, the word "disregard" now effectively breaks the search interface.

Some ads will have chatbots built in. | Image: Google Google's AI-powered Search era apparently also extends to its ads. Now, when you search for a product, Google's Gemini AI chatbot will surface relevant items and generate a "custom explainer" about why you should purchase a specific one. The update comes just one day after Google revealed a new Search box for larger, more conversational queries, along with a focus on AI-generated results. In an example shared by Google, someone searching for a "compact espresso pod machine" might see a Nespresso Vertuo Up under a "Sponsored Product" label,...

Last year, after watching Google's I/O keynote, I wrote that it felt like Google's future was Google googling. After watching this year's I/O keynote on Tuesday, I don't think Google just wants to google for you - I think it wants to do everything for you, all from a search box. Take the trusty Google search bar itself, something Google is generally hesitant to update, which is getting some updates. It will "dynamically" expand as you type longer queries. It will offer "AI-powered suggestions" that Google claims will "go beyond autocomplete," which could cause you to fill in the blanks of a s...

Google is transforming Search from a list of links into an AI-powered experience filled with conversational answers, autonomous agents, and interactive interfaces — a shift that could further reduce traffic to publishers across the web.

Google Search AI Mode shows shift from keyword to natural language queries after one year.

For a quarter century, the Google search box has been one of the most recognizable interfaces in computing: a thin white rectangle, a blinking cursor, a few typed words, and a list of blue links. On Tuesday, Google will formally retire that paradigm. At its annual I/O developer conference, Google announced a sweeping redesign of the search box itself — the literal text field where billions of queries begin every day — transforming it from a simple keyword input into a dynamic, AI-driven conversation starter that can accept text, images, PDFs, videos, and even open Chrome tabs as inputs. The c...

Google Search is entering the next phase of its AI evolution. During Google I/O 2026, the company showed off a reimagined search box that makes it easier to flow between AI Overviews, the AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of search results, and AI Mode, Google's chatbot-like search experience. Powered by the new Gemini 3.5 Flash model, Google's updated search box expands for longer queries, while offering a new AI-powered autocomplete feature to build on your question. Robby Stein, Google's vice president of product for Search, told The Verge you'll "reliably" see AI Overviews if ...