this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025

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You knew it was coming: Google begins testing AI-only search results | This version of Google won't show you the 10 blue links at all—Gemini completely takes over the results in AI Mode (arstechnica.com)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Google has become so integral to online navigation that its name became a verb, meaning "to find things on the Internet." Soon, Google might just tell you what's on the Internet instead of showing you. The company has announced an expansion of its AI search features, powered by Gemini 2.0. Everyone will soon see more AI Overviews at the top of the results page, but Google is also testing a more substantial change in the form of AI Mode. This version of Google won't show you the 10 blue links at all—Gemini completely takes over the results in AI Mode.

This marks the debut of Gemini 2.0 in Google search. Google announced the first Gemini 2.0 models in December 2024, beginning with the streamlined Gemini 2.0 Flash. The heavier versions of Gemini 2.0 are still in testing, but Google says it has tuned AI Overviews with this model to offer help with harder questions in the areas of math, coding, and multimodal queries.

With this update, you will begin seeing AI Overviews on more results pages, and minors with Google accounts will see AI results for the first time. In fact, even logged out users will see AI Overviews soon. This is a big change, but it's only the start of Google's plans for AI search.

Gemini 2.0 also powers the new AI Mode for search. It's launching as an opt-in feature via Google's Search Labs, offering a totally new alternative to search as we know it. This custom version of the Gemini large language model (LLM) skips the standard web links that have been part of every Google search thus far.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

No more google at all. Thanks for making it easy for me.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 days ago (1 children)

AI is over hyped and doesn’t need to be shoved in our faces. Ugh.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago

It’s another tech bubble like the dot com bubble. But at this point, the AI bubble, the crypto bubble, and the capitalism bubble will all crash at the same time as the world economy falls apart and we end up in another global war. I guess the accelerationists that survive will get their wish and see what remains and if it’s the neofuedalist white supremacy utopia they dream of

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

searxng

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago

I don't need to care. I stopped using Google search months ago.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 days ago

Stick to SEARCH, not making shit up (euphemistically called "hallucinating").

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I mean their search results have gone to absolute shit anyway, the AI is probably better at this point.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

My coworker who has an absolute hard-on for ChatGPT has tried several times in vain to get it to say the correct answer to a question I knew the answer to. LLMs are bullshit engines and toys for the malicious.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Absolute shit results run through an AI gives you even worse absolute shit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

doubt

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Been using Ecosia for months now. DuckDuckGo and Startpage before that. I'm pretty happy with Ecosia search results, can't complain.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Because it isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough and my favourite now. And they are the only consumer tech company I know of having such a positive impact on the environment worldwide.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Is this for human beings, or is it for Google to show their investors to prove that AI is totally going to revolutionize something eventually?

Screw Google either way, I'm not going to use their search engine either way, but this doesn't feel like a product they are genuinely committed to releasing. Maybe I'm wrong, and in that case, screw them even more.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Ok, but why should I go to Google for ai answers when I can get the same from openai, other models or even local installations without all the ads?

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Hmm, in theory I don't have a problem with an AI telling me the answer to my question or whatever I'm searching for - but this isn't a web search. If I'm actually searching for a particular page or context, then I want to be able to do that.

These are two entirely different things, and if Google goes down this route they aren't a search engine anymore - they are an LLM provider.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Couldn't agree more. I use both tools as they have their place, but when I want a search engine, I don't want to get an AI answer for the result. Like if I'm searching for documentation on something, what benefit would the AI provide me over just giving the link?

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

The model uses "advanced reasoning, thinking, and multimodal capabilities"...

Well, LLM's are incapable of actually doing the first two, so we're already off to a great start.

I don't think it's much in the way of hyperbole to say that if they make this the default or worse, only search output option then this will be the thing that literally destroys the company.

No one except idiotic boardroom denizens actually wants this. Google failing to provide actual search results is the singular one and only thing that could actually get users to switch away from using it -- and not do that thing where they just grumble and bitch and moan but keep using it anyway. And if no one is searching on Google then nobody is seeing ads on Google, which means Google will not be selling ads.