For more than two decades, the format of the Google Search results page hasn't changed much: type a phrase and get a list of blue links.
Now, the most valuable real estate on the internet appears set to undergo a renovation, with Google announcing an opt-in trial for adding generative artificial intelligence (AI) to the results page.
The company that dominates the global search engine market has been under pressure to stage an AI comeback after the runaway success of rival chatbot ChatGPT.
At its annual Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco this week, the tech giant unveiled part of its answer.
For the moment, the trial can only be accessed in the US, but it offers a glimpse of what's coming for Google Search in Australia.
What do AI-generated search results look like?
In adding generative AI to search, Google could have taken the route of Microsoft Bing, replacing the Search results page entirely with a ChatGPT-style messaging system.
Instead, it's tried to incorporate AI-generated answers into the results page, and kept the list of blue links.
What Google calls an "AI-powered snapshot" appears at the top of the Search results page.
This is an AI-generated summary a few paragraphs long, including links to sites, intended to corroborate the information presented.
Below this, the snapshot presents a list of potential follow-up questions.
There's also the option of another view, which breaks the snapshot down into its sentences, with a link to the sources for information for that specific sentence.
Search results in the conventional format of blue links appear below the snapshot, but they're a long way down the page.
Given most people don't scroll down their search results (the top three results get more than half the clicks), the long reign of the plain blue link appears to be over.
How do I sign up to the trial?
For the moment, the trial is limited to Chrome desktop and the Google App in the US.
"We’ll be opening up sign-ups for Search Labs today, with access to SGE [Search generative experience] beginning in the coming weeks," Google said in a blog post published overnight.
Australians get a message "Search Labs isn't available for your account right now".
But if you want to try, here's the waiting list.
Are there still ads?
Google generates about 80 per cent of its revenue from ads, and mostly from Google Search.
The company has been criticised for featuring too many ads alongside Search results, making it harder for users to find the information they're looking for.
Unsurprisingly, the new generative AI experiment will feature ads.
In one of the screenshots released by Google, for a query about commuter e-bikes, ads for e-bikes appear beneath the AI snapshot, labelled "sponsored" in bold black text.
"Search ads will continue to appear in dedicated ad slots throughout the page," Google said in a blog post.
"In this new experience, advertisers will still have the opportunity to reach potential customers along their search journeys.
"We'll test and evolve the ads experience as we learn more."
Improvements in AI will allow Google to improve its knowledge of consumer behaviour and offer more highly targeted advertising placement, said Paul Haskell-Dowland, a professor of cybersecurity at Edith Cowan University.
"The number of advertisements could be significantly less, but they will be highly optimised and relevant to you as an individual," he said.
"Google will potentially have a more rounded view of you."
Are AI-generated search results accurate?
Adding generative AI to the search engine that services 85 per cent of the world's search engine activity carries obvious risks.
Google's AI chatbot Bard, like ChatGPT and others, has had problems with factual errors and giving dangerous advice.
Google employees reportedly labelled the system a "pathological liar" and pleaded with the company not to release it to the public.
Then, when Google launched Bard three months ago, it made a factual error in one of the company's own advertisements.
The generative AI model that powered Bard has since been replaced by another. At this week's conference, Google unveiled a "next-generation language model", PaLM 2, that it says outperforms other leading systems on some tasks.
PaLM 2 appears to be a big improvement on its predecessor, but Google admits it can still make factual errors, reinforce harmful social biases around such things as race or gender, and give answers that are racist or xenophobic.
For this reason, when rolling out PaLM 2-powered generative AI search results, Google has installed guardrails. There are some kinds of search or questions the AI search engine won't touch.
It will default to regular search results if it determines there isn't enough reliable information on the internet to create a snapshot.
You may get the same result for questions about racism, terrorism or another subject area Google deems unsafe.
Expect Google's AI-generated search results to be carefully scrutinised during the trial.
Meanwhile, Google says it's opening up the PaLM 2-powered Bard chatbot for everyone to use.
From next week, it's removing the waitlist for Bard, and opening access to people in 180 countries.
Will this change the way we google?
Knowledge of how search engines work subtly influences how we phrase our search terms.
If you're looking for something to watch, you might search, "best movies 2023", because you know Google is good at answering that kind of question.
The search engine has objective movie rankings, like Rotten Tomatoes, blog posts, and box office figures, that it can pull data from.
Right now, you'd be wary of searching for something too broad, like, "Where should we go on our holiday?". Or too specific, like, "Where should we go on our holiday this June for one week, we're looking for a mix of relaxation and exercise, without spending too much money."
Instead, you might break this question up into a dozen searches, and essentially wander about, searching for ideas and inspiration.
But one of the promises of AI-generated search results is being able to skip this step.
The search engine will be essentially running lots of disparate searches at once and then combining that information into a few paragraphs.
We won't have to be so literal with our Google search terms, said Professor Haskell-Dowland.
"AI offers the ability for computers to understand what we naturally mean rather than what we write," he said.
"With generative AI, meaning can be interpreted and intent derived."
For Google, rattled by the success of ChatGPT and reports Samsung could make Bing its default search engine, a lot is riding on the AI-generated search experiment.
The world may keep googling, but the way we do this is going to change.
