this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025

776 points (98.4% liked)

Technology

69844 readers

3832 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related news or articles.
Be excellent to each other!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

L3s@lemmy.world

enu@lemmy.world

technopagan@lemmy.world

L4s@lemmy.world

L3s@hackingne.ws

L4s@hackingne.ws

776

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 2 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

184 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

(page 2) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I hate this.

[–] Albbi@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] GenosseFlosse@feddit.org 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months 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?

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] static_radio@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 months 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 2 months ago

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

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] Xanza@lemm.ee 9 points 2 months ago (4 children)

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

[–] moe90@feddit.nl 5 points 2 months ago

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

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] GaMEChld@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago

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

[–] acutfjg@feddit.nl 5 points 2 months ago

doubt

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

...hmm that's kind of shitty and it uses ten times more energy! Let's go full enshitification!

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] negativeone@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Embrace, extend, extinguish, but now it’s Google doing it to the World Wide Web.

[–] blurcosp@leminal.space 8 points 2 months ago

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

[–] xia@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 2 months ago

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

[–] ZeroTerabytes@lemmy.cafe 6 points 2 months ago

https://www.startpage.com/

[–] Pondis@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] letsgo@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] peregrin5@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months 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.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago (12 children)

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

load more comments (12 replies)

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I didn't expect this. You mean it doesn't have ads? All I tend to get for hits on Google are paid search results anyway. Surely they'll soon bring some ad links into these results.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] grumt@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] arcterus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (6 children)

I looked into this a while back and came to the conclusion that the dev didn't seem trustworthy. Also, just looking on the homepage, the images it showed me were a dildo with "4get" stuck on it using a sticky note and a modified manga panel about beating women. Not sure I'd want to use something like that in public.

[–] grumt@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

yeah, the dev seems kinda like a shitposter ngl (although there are some funny pictures in the front page)

However, I configured it as my default search engine, so I never go to the front page. Also, at least is free and open source (AGPL)

load more comments (4 replies)

load more comments (5 replies)

load more comments