Google's Sundar Pichai on AI-powered search and the future of the web

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Today, I’m talking to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who joined the show the day after the big Google I/O developer conference. Google’s focus during the conference was on how it’s building AI into virtually all of its products. If you’re a Decoder listener, you’ve heard me talk about this idea a lot over the past year: I call it “Google Zero,” and I’ve been asking a lot of web and media CEOs what would happen to their businesses if their Google traffic were to go to zero. In a world where AI powers search with overviews and summaries, that’s a real possibility. What then happens to the web?

I’ve talked to Sundar quite a bit over the past few years, and this was the most fired up I’ve ever seen him. I think you can really tell that there is a deep tension between the vision Google has for the future — where AI magically makes us smarter, more productive, more artistic — and the very real fears and anxieties creators and website owners are feeling right now about how search has changed and how AI might swallow the internet forever, and that he’s wrestling with that tension.

Links:

• Google and OpenAI are racing to rewire the internet — Command Line
• Google I/O 2024: everything announced — The Verge
• Google is redesigning its search engine, and it’s AI all the way down — The Verge
• Project Astra is the future of AI at Google — The Verge
• Did SEO experts ruin the internet or did Google? — The Verge
• YouTube is going to start cracking down on AI clones of musicians — The Verge
• AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born — The Verge
• How Google is killing independent sites like ours — HouseFresh
• Inside the First 'SEO Heist' of the AI Era — Business Insider
• Google’s Sundar Pichai talks Search, AI, and dancing with Microsoft — Decoder

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23922415

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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