{"id":28990,"date":"2025-07-29T03:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T03:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/28990\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T03:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T03:02:10","slug":"google-launches-new-ai-search-feature-in-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/28990\/","title":{"rendered":"Google launches new AI search feature in UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GettyGetty Images<\/p>\n

Google is rolling out a new tool in the UK that will generate results using artificial intelligence (AI), in a significant shake-up to the world’s most popular search engine.<\/p>\n

Instead of a list of search results showing links to other websites in blue type, people who choose “AI Mode” will be given an answer written in a conversational style, containing far fewer links to other pages.<\/p>\n

The new search tool will not replace Google’s existing search platform, which processes billions of queries every day.<\/p>\n

But experts predict such tools will increasingly incorporate AI, a shift that is concerning organisations, firms and publishers, which rely on search traffic.<\/p>\n

People are increasingly turning to AI chatbots such as ChatGPT instead of traditional search engines to find quick, simple answers to questions, even though they are not always accurate.<\/p>\n

Google itself already includes a brief AI-generated “overview” in the listed results for some searches.<\/p>\n

And the new tool, which uses Google’s Gemini AI platform to generate its answers, has already been launched in the US and India.<\/p>\n

It is being rolled out in the UK over the next few days.<\/p>\n

For now, AI Mode will be optional and will appear both as a tab and an option within the search box itself.<\/p>\n

Complicated queries<\/p>\n

The tech giant said it was responding to changes in the way people use its search engine to ask more complicated questions.<\/p>\n

“About two years ago, if you spilled coffee on your carpet, you would have [searched for] ‘clean carpet stain’,” said Google’s product manager for search, Hema Budaraju. <\/p>\n

“That’s how you would have probably keyworded your way through. <\/p>\n

“Now, my query is likely to be, ‘I spilled coffee on my Berber carpet, I’m looking for a cleaner that is pet friendly’.”<\/p>\n

\"GettyGetty Images<\/p>\n

AI Mode has already been rolled out in the US and India<\/p>\n

The BBC was unable to test the tool with its own questions during the demo because the tool had not yet been activated in the UK.<\/p>\n

But Google provided a demo using the example of someone searching for suitable places to take a young family strawberry picking.<\/p>\n

However, the answers it provided seemed to be spread over a wide geographical area. It featured a handful of links to businesses, including their locations on a map, but they came lower down in the response, compared to a traditional Google search.<\/p>\n

Clicking links<\/p>\n

Businesses, from retailers to news publishers, currently rely on web traffic funnelled their way from Google’s search results. Firms can pay for prime spots on the results lists, as a form of advertising.<\/p>\n

A shift towards AI-generated responses, containing fewer direct links, could up-end that model.<\/p>\n

Ms Budaraju said the firm had not yet finalised how advertising revenue for AI Mode would work, or whether firms would be able to pay to be included in the response.<\/p>\n

But it is already concerning some businesses, who say people are less likely to click through to their websites via the links contained in an AI summary. <\/p>\n

Ms Budaraju disagreed with this characterisation.<\/p>\n

“I would say that I think people are going to use these technologies to unlock newer information-seeking journeys,” she said. <\/p>\n

“These kind of questions didn’t happen before, and now you made it really possible for people to express anything a lot more naturally.”<\/p>\n

The Daily Mail claims the number of people who click its links from Google search results has fallen by around 50% on both desktop and mobile traffic since Google introduced its AI Overview feature.<\/p>\n

And a recent study by the Pew Research Centre suggested that people only clicked a link once in every 100 searches when there was an AI summary at the top of the page. Google argues the research methodology in that study was flawed.<\/p>\n

News model<\/p>\n

Rosa Curling, director of the campaign group Foxglove which commissioned the research, said she was concerned what the increased use of AI might mean for news organisations.<\/p>\n

Although AI-generated summaries are often inaccurate, people weren’t clicking through to the original news items they were based on, she said, undermining the business models of news organisations.<\/p>\n

“What the AI summary now does is makes sure that the readers’ eyes stay on the Google web page,” she said.<\/p>\n

“And the advertising revenue of those news outlets is being massively impacted.”<\/p>\n

Google said it already generates more than two billion AI Overview boxes every day in more than 40 languages, although not in the EU, where legislation procludes it.<\/p>\n

There are also significant concerns about the environmental impact of increased AI use. Running AI requires huge data centres that use a lot of power and clean water. <\/p>\n

Ms Budaraju said Google remained committed to sustainability.<\/p>\n

“We are constantly, as Google and as Search, evolving sustainable ways to serve technology,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images Google is rolling out a new tool in the UK that will generate results using artificial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-28990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}