Google’s AI Search Growth: A Result of Strategic Design
Google started testing AI Overviews in its search two years ago, and now this feature has spread to more than 100 countries. According to the company, now more than 1.5 billion users are using it every month.
The work of AI Overviews is that when a user searches a question on Google, such as “What is Generative AI?”, Google itself collects information from the Internet and shows an AI-generated answer on top, so that the user does not have to visit different websites.
Although this has affected the website traffic of some publishers, Google considers it a big opportunity for itself – from which the company can get both good revenue and user engagement.
In October last year, Google started showing advertisements in AI Overviews. At the same time, now it is also testing a new feature called AI Mode, in which users can ask multiple questions in a single search and can also follow them up. This feature has been brought to compete with AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
Google recently reported that another of its AI features Circle to Search, which allows you to highlight anything on the mobile screen and ask questions related to it, is now present in more than 250 million devices. Its usage has increased by 40% compared to the previous quarter.
In addition, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that Google’s Lens technology, which is an AI-based visual search tool, has seen an increase of more than 5 billion searches. At the same time, the number of people shopping with Lens has also increased by 10% in Q1.
However, amid all these technological successes, Google is also facing legal challenges. The US Justice Department has pressured Google to separate its search monopoly and Chrome. Along with this, a court also believed that Google’s dominance over adtech is illegal, creating the possibility of the company’s division.
