{"id":85979,"date":"2025-10-17T06:41:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T06:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/85979\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T06:41:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T06:41:14","slug":"the-real-search-shift-is-behavioral-not-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/85979\/","title":{"rendered":"The real search shift is behavioral, not AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

AI Overviews are changing what it means to \u201csearch.\u201d The web remains central, but AI and shifting user habits are creating new winners and losers \u2013 with forums, videos, and creators gaining ground on traditional publishers, said Google\u2019s Search Head Liz Reid in a new interview.<\/p>\n

Search shake-up. Every ranking update creates \u201cwinners and losers,\u201d Reid acknowledged. But she said user behavior \u2013 not just algorithms \u2013 is driving the shift, with younger audiences favoring forums, short-form video, and creator content over traditional publishers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that\u2019s always true about Google Search is that you make changes and there are winners and losers. That\u2019s true on any ranking update. That doesn\u2019t, in any way, discount what it means for those individual publishers that are losers. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut the other thing that\u2019s going on is there\u2019s a behavioral shift that is happening in conjunction with the move to AI, and that is a shift of who people are going to for a set of questions. And they are going to short-form video. They are going to forums. They are going to user-generated content a lot more than traditional sites. This is particularly true with younger users. They\u2019re going to podcasts rather than reading a long article.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do everything from user research to we run an experiment. And so you take feedback from what you hear from research about what users want, you then test it out, and then you see how users actually act, and then, based on how users act, the system then starts to learn and adjust as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supporting the open web. \u201cWe really care about the health of the web more than anybody else. It is essential, not simply for AI Overviews, but for the product,\u201d Reid said. She pointed to inline links, videos, and personalization features that highlight trusted publishers.<\/p>\n

Yes, but. Those links now sit inside AI Overviews \u2013 within or beneath Google\u2019s own AI-generated summaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cDead Internet\u201d worries. Reid dismissed fears that AI-generated content will drown out real people, saying Google\u2019s systems downrank spam and extremely low-value AI slop. <\/p>\n

Yes, but. As AI floods the web with content, Google becomes the filter that controls which human voices break through.<\/p>\n

Quality signals in the AI era. Google wants to reward content that shows time, craft, expertise, and perspective, not mass-produced fluff. Reid said users prefer \u201cdeeper, richer\u201d content that feels human. One thing they are looking at is whether a page gets fewer \u201cbounce clicks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, but. Who decides what\u2019s \u201crich\u201d? With fewer clicks going to websites from AI Overviews, Google\u2019s algorithmic judgments will matter more than ever. <\/p>\n

Richer, more personal queries. Reid says AI lets people search in more nuanced ways (\u201cinstead of \u2018I want a dress for the wedding,\u2019 \u2018I want a dress for the wedding that is made by a merchant with the following values, and is also red, and is short’\u201d) \u2013 helping smaller merchants and creators surface.<\/p>\n

Yes, but. While that personalization could reward niche voices, it could further concentrate visibility among those who align with Google\u2019s machine understanding of \u201crelevance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chat isn\u2019t the whole future. Reid said AI won\u2019t replace Search \u2013 it will enhance it. \u201cPeople still want to hear from other people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Yes, but. Again, Google is blending summaries, citations, and mentions \u2013 and AI ultimately decides which people get heard and even who gets credit for an answer.<\/p>\n

Why we care. Google\u2019s AI Overviews are reshaping how people find information and who gets traffic. Although Reid insists the web stays central, in the future Google\u2019s AI summaries will likely reduce more clicks and force publishers to fight for visibility inside Google\u2019s answers.<\/p>\n

The interview.\u00a0The Google Exec Reinventing Search in the AI Era | WSJ\u2019s Bold Names<\/a><\/p>\n

\n Search Engine Land is owned by Semrush<\/a>. We remain committed to providing high-quality coverage of marketing topics. Unless otherwise noted, this page\u2019s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush<\/a> Inc.\n <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Danny\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tDanny Goodwin is Editorial Director of Search Engine Land & Search Marketing Expo – SMX. He joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as Senior Editor. In addition to reporting on the latest search marketing news, he manages Search Engine Land\u2019s SME (Subject Matter Expert) program. He also helps program U.S. SMX events. Goodwin has been editing and writing about the latest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. He previously was Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal (from 2017 to 2022), managing editor of Momentology (from 2014-2016) and editor of Search Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AI Overviews are changing what it means to \u201csearch.\u201d The web remains central, but AI and shifting user…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,43,80],"class_list":["post-85979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}