Google’s Intelligent Search Box
The era of the “ten blue links” is officially over.
At its Google I/O conference on Tuesday, Google unveiled an AI-powered overhaul of Search centered around a reimagined “intelligent search box” — what the company describes as the biggest change to this entry point to the web since the search box debuted more than 25 years ago.
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.
[…]
While Google says that AI Mode is not the default experience, Search’s user interface encourages users to ask follow-up questions instead of scrolling down to the links to other pages.
Odd, to me, to paint this only in terms of user convenience (ostensible user convenience at that), and not in terms of this being a de facto attack on Zillow and the rest of the web.
Nilay Patel (2024):
There’s a theory I’ve had for a long time that I’ve been calling “Google Zero” — my name for that moment when Google Search simply stops sending traffic outside of its search engine to third-party websites.
Amanda Silberling (Hacker News):
On Google’s video announcing the Search updates, one commenter wrote, “this is the best advertisement for letting people know it’s time to get a different search engine.”
[…]
If you’re curious about alternative search engines, you’re in the right place. Here are some places to start (or, embrace chaos and see where Open Web Engine takes you).
Previously:
Update (2026-05-27): Jess Kinghorn (Hacker News):
DuckDuckGo has been one major winner of this Google Search abandonment. Just for a start, visits to its AI-free search page noai.duckduckgo.com between May 20 to May 25 are said to have increased by 22.7% on average week-on-week, with the figures peaking May 24 at 27.7%.
The DuckDuckGo mobile app saw installs spike in the US by 18.1% on average compared to the previous week. TechCrunch reported this growth was sustained over six days, peaking at 30.5% on May 25.
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Ditto to ED. I have Google Web as my default everywhere.
The only problem is sometimes after switching to e.g. image search I still click the All tab (instead of Web) and get really confused.
I don’t love subscriptions but I’ve been a Kagi subscriber for two years and there has not been a day since I signed up where I’ve felt bad about paying for a search engine. Peace of mind is worth paying for.
Really must try Kagi again. Meanwhile +1 to using an extension like RedirectWeb or STM to redirect back to udm14 Google.
I find making sure Google search returns web search results isn't enough. It has to be that plus "verbatim search". Then it's like your searching the web in 2015.
Google’s been working toward this for a long time, but it’s a huge violation of everything good about the Internet
It brings us back to the days of AOL walled gardens. Hopefully, people will similarly want to experience the real Internet enough that Google goes the way of AOL
They’ve shown us they shouldn’t have the power they do because they’ll abuse it. Time to break them up
I've started using Ecosia and have that initial feeling of "this kind of sucks". But then I use Google search and get a distinct whiff of "this definitely sucks"
In the first case it's that usual thing whenever a week used app changes interface. The second is just Google burning everything to the ground.
But. The seo crowd is equally to blame for ruining the web. Every other webpage about an activity or product I'm curious about is a poorly written, keyword stuffed, Google bait, written by someone that has no expertise in the subject.
Let it all burn to the ground
> Google’s been working toward this for a long time, but it’s a huge violation of everything good about the Internet
Nearly everything the 'Big tech' has been doing for a while is a violation, of all sizes.
> I've started using Ecosia and have that initial feeling of "this kind of sucks". But then I use Google search and get a distinct whiff of "this definitely sucks"
Ten, perhaps up to fifteen years ago I would've said I'm a bit anal about using alt search services. Google would do better for garden variety searches. These days, no. Be it something completely separate or a mix-from-multiple-search-engines kind, the results usually tend to be less shite.
duck.ai is also relatively okay, even taking into account my slight distaste for LLMs.
