An iconoclastic take on Google's AI search end goal

[JS Girard]

I don't think AIOs, Gemini or even AI mode are the end game that Google is actually aiming for. I think Web Guides are really what Google envisions as its actual end game.

I think industry-wide faffing about over whatever-you-call-it-optimisation is a big distraction. Remember when everyone obsessed over Core Web Vitals and then we discovered that for the most part it had minuscule effects on rankings at best? (I'll leave the question of whether the confusion is engineered, casual incompetence, mere side-effect, or even actively perceived at all as useful by Google to others)

In its current form (at least as far as I can tell: search Labs seems to be entirely unavailable to me), Web Guides are probably hundreds of times more palatable than any of the other options to both users and content producers, and after having had to suffer through the shitstorm of lying GenAI, it will feel like a breath of fresh air.

Most importantly, though? It is simply orders of magnitude easier to pop ads into a Web Guide that is (mostly) normal, but reorganized search results than into any form of fully AI-generated content.

And that, regardless of what they actively presents as their business plan, speaks to Google's wallet loudly and clearly.

 

[fisicx]

Google makes money from advertising and selling your data.

They don't make money from GBP and Organic search (but they do from the sponsored results).

Look at any number of news channel and entertainment websites and they are infested with adverts. So much so that it's almost impossible to use the site without an ad blocker. Now imagine a Web Guide as @JS Girard suggest that would be equally full of adverts than you cannot block as that will be integrated in to the AI generated results (mainly because of Manifest V3).

It's unlikely to ever cover the huge cost of AI but it will give them some income. I suspect GBP and Organic search will get pushed way down the page as AI generated content will be the default.

I already know people who never get past the AI summary at the top of the SERPS. The no longer ever visit websites - there is no need as Google has given them the answer.