Since its earliest days, Google’s homepage has been iconic in its simplicity: a central text box and a big button labeled “Search.”
That’s now changing. As anticipated, many users are reporting that the “Search” button is no more, replaced by three buttons for various AI features: “Create images,” “Ask about files,” and “Brainstorm.”
These are placed next to the lingering “I’m feeling lucky” button, which survived the chopping block. A separate “AI Mode” button that’s existed inside the search bar for some time now still features as well. Some of the options, like “Create images,” were already featured on the home page of the Google app.
The change was first spotted on Monday by search engine experts. You can still perform a regular Google search — which are already pretty AI-laden — by hitting enter. But it’s clear that Google is further experimenting with its AI-centric vision for navigating the internet, though there’s a distinct sense of caution about how far the tech giant is willing to go.
Google Search’s vice president of product Robby Stein confirmed that this was a “small test.”
“This is a small test on desktop to help people find new things they can do with Search,” he wrote in a post on X. “No impact to how the core search box works.”
In May, Google teased an “intelligent” search box that expands into an chatbot-like experience as you type. It came loaded with AI features, including the ability to recruit AI agents to automate searches and an autocomplete feature to help finish your thoughts.
The biggest change, however, was that the revamped search box showed conversational answers instead of Google’s classic “ten blue links” to other websites.
Experts viewed this as a threat to the open web. Instead of encouraging users to visit other websites, Google’s AI was pilfering and summarizing content into a single contained window. In the long run, this could starve websites of the much needed traffic they need to survive. This was already happening as more people turn to AI chatbots to get their answers instead of a search engine, causing some websites to start using ads that cater to robotic visitors.
Still, heavily AI-infused though it may be, the old-fashioned search hasn’t been completely replaced by Google — yet.
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