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 4 days ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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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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[–] NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

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[–] IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago (12 children)

Kagi. But you free loaders would have to pay for something.

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[–] XenoK@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I don't really get Google's angle since it's pretty obvious that their AI search sucks. Maybe it's just to impress shareholders?

[–] ToiletFlushShowerScream@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

This makes sense to me. All other reasons presented sound like wishful thinking that google is still the same company from 2005

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[–] Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I hate this.

[–] Albbi@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

DuckDuckGo is pretty easy to switch to. You can go to settings and disable AI chat in it.

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[–] Xanza@lemm.ee 9 points 3 days ago (4 children)

I noticed today that UDM mode for Google is displaying sponsored results now, too...

[–] moe90@feddit.nl 5 points 3 days ago

yeah udm14 getting pretty bad lately. That is why I moved to startpage which is same Google services without AI and sponsored contents

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[–] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 11 points 3 days ago

Oh wow sounds great, can I get in line now to not use it?

[–] blurcosp@leminal.space 8 points 3 days ago

Yup, this was all the motivation I needed to jump ship from Google, fuck those clowns.

[–] grumt@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 days ago (11 children)

Been using 4get for some time now, I don't think a search engine can get better than this

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[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 3 days ago

Considering how often Google's AI hallucinates some garbage for an answer this is going to be terrible

[–] singletona@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago

When I use a web search tool I want to look at the websites themselves. Not having to go through Gemini (the AI not the protocol) telling me what IT thinks I want...

Assuming AGI ever develops and bothers to sift through data. I've no problem with AI as a tool (that is, Dumb AI like we currently have.)

When I'm doing a web search rather than actually calling up Gemini (The AI not the Protocol) I want a WEB SEARCH... that means I am not looking to use AI. I'm wanting to use OI (Organic Intelligence.)

[–] static_radio@lemmy.ml 11 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Is there any escape from shitty AI slop in my search results?

What search engines are there that I can use that arent a proxy for one of the big ones? And yes I know about Kagi, I’d prefer open source if possible.

[–] IMALlama@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

Moving from enshitified closed source to a different closed source that's trying to position itself as user first isn't necessarily bad.

[–] asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

There's a new beta one which only uses its own index: https://stract.com/

And best of all it's written in Rust.

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[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Can it be worse than the sanitised results they give you now?

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[–] Pondis@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Which is EXACTLY why I just moved to using Vivaldi browser and StartPage as a search engine. Fuck these guys.

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[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

So what happens to the situation of having to pay ad-word rent on your own brand name?

Do we still get that with AI search, or is Google going to give up their golden goose of ad revenue. I'm guessing the adwords feed into the background RAG that influences what the model says.

[–] xia@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 3 days ago

Of all the sources of truth, why pick auto-complete?

[–] letsgo@lemm.ee 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Do people still use google? I haven't touched it for yonks now. Except GRIS, that still works well.

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[–] peregrin5@lemm.ee 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I noticed Edge would only show me corporate/authority friendly results recently as well oddly cutting down the number of results I see to a very unnaturally short amount of results.

Deleting it and moving to DuckDuckGo which while the corporate friendly things were still at the top, it at least showed me some opposition results.

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