Google introduces ‘AI mode’ in UK search

AI Mode means that people can choose to ask Google search more nuanced questions, as well as drawing on images and audio to ask questions of the search engine. Announcing the news, Hema Budaraju - Vice President of Product Management, Search at Google - explained that “Google Search opens up new opportunities for content discovery” by expanding the sorts of questions that people can ask. The tool will be rolled out in the UK as an optional feature over the next few days - it’s already live in the US and India. 

The development - which shows how the pace of AI-powered change is advancing - does raise questions for the wider industry, particularly publishers who are concerned by how AI-powered search will impact their traffic rates. AI Mode will include fewer links to content, with a study from Pew Research showing that the introduction of AI-generated summaries in search has already impacted publishers' traffic rates. 

Commenting on Google’s news, Jon Mew, CEO of IAB UK, said: “Google’s decision to introduce ‘AI mode’ within its UK search offering is a profound shift that will fundamentally redefine the shape of the digital ad industry going forwards. No one is under any illusion that AI innovation is moving at pace and it’s inevitable that models will change along with that - the challenge for the rest of the industry is to keep pace, particularly publishers who are understandably concerned about how the changing search landscape will impact their traffic levels. 

“At the IAB, our priority is to work with our members from across the industry to minimise the disruption caused by this change, facilitate meaningful collaboration, and work to ensure that the diversity of our open internet is maintained in tandem with accelerating innovation. IAB Tech Lab’s development of the LLM Content Ingest API Initiative is a great example of this approach at play, helping to protect publishers and support businesses across the digital ecosystem to thrive in a rapidly changing landscape.”