Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Latest Breaking News

Showing Original Post only (View all)

highplainsdem

(63,221 posts)
Tue May 19, 2026, 03:12 PM May 19

Google Search as you know it is over [View all]

Source: TechCrunch

-snip-

Instead of returning a simple list of links, Google Search will drop users into AI-powered interactive experiences at times. Google is also introducing tools that can dispatch “information agents” to gather information on a user’s behalf, along with tools that let users build personalized mini apps tailored to their needs.

-snip-

This shift means that “searching the web” will increasingly be performed by AI agents rather than humans. Instead, people will focus more on acting on the information those agents provide instead of manually clicking links.

-snip-

“Search can build custom experiences just for your individual questions, from dynamic layouts, interactive visuals to persistent and stateful project spaces that you can return to again and again,” says Reid. One of the ways Google is integrating these new capabilities is with “generative UI” (user interface), where it builds custom widgets and visualizations on the fly in answer to users’ search questions.

-snip-

Combined, these changes will likely further decimate Google referrals to publishers, which have already been suffering from declining referrals due to AI Overviews. This has already put some ad-dependent media operations out of business, and now things will likely get worse.

-snip-

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/google-search-as-you-know-it-is-over/



Fuck this.

Google was useful because it offered links for quick access to useful and/or interesting websites.

Google as an AI filter has way too much control of the information and sites people will be allowed to see.

And Google and other AI companies' search features are destroying the internet, stealing both data and traffic from websites.
19 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Everything you said, plus ai heats up our planet and uses up our water questionseverything May 19 #1
Crap... Bayard May 19 #2
I've been using Startpage for a couple years. Make7 May 19 #8
Well I've been looking for ways to ditch Google for a long time. 1WorldHope May 19 #10
Google, as we knew it, was over and changed quite a while ago, before AI. RockRaven May 19 #3
Same here. It's been over for me for years now mdbl May 19 #4
Brave and DuckDuckGo are much more secure than Google. summer_in_TX May 19 #5
Will Bunch: Soon there'll be no new information to train AI on anything that happened after 2026 highplainsdem May 19 #6
The usual acronym ETTD should be edited slightlv May 19 #7
Remember the "World Wide Web"? I think back to the 1990s as the days of the Wild West FakeNoose Wednesday #19
I've gotten in the habit of using the verb 'google' instead of 'search'. I'm trying to break out of that. Since I'm not eppur_se_muova May 19 #9
Fuck all AI until/unless that shit is HEAVILY regulated...something that sure as hell isn't happening under fascism. Karasu May 19 #11
There are many things a Google search will not find. BidenRocks May 19 #12
Google anything ... any search term ... then type "-AI" after the term FakeNoose May 19 #13
I do that (when I remember) but you still get AI content too. BlueSpot May 19 #14
+1 dalton99a Wednesday #16
So basically the era of links is over Diraven Wednesday #15
It was fun while it lasted. hunter Wednesday #17
Cory Doctrow made a word for this:"enshitification". nt Shipwack Wednesday #18
Latest Discussions»Latest Breaking News»Google Search as you know...