back to article Google teases AI Mode for search, giving Gemini total control over your results

It was inevitable, really, but now it's official: Google is testing a new all-AI web search mode that leaves users entirely beholden to what Gemini thinks they'll want.  The Chrome giant announced Wednesday a new experimental "AI Mode" that, in essence, is a supercharged version of the AI Overviews slapped on the top of nearly …

  1. Headley_Grange Silver badge

    I already run Google searches without the AI views at the top. Lets hope Google keeps that option open when they bring this in.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh dear Lord. As if the current AI summaries weren't awful enough.

  3. IGotOut Silver badge

    Just swear

    To lose AI results in the dog shit slop that is Google search, just swear.

    Try it

    1. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

      Re: Just swear

      A few months ago, I discovered, "Hey, Google-- fucking cancel audio!" is a valid, acted-upon command.

    2. stiine Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Just swear

      That kills lookahead also, and is typically ignored in the actual query. If you type the word 'fuck' before your query, you'll get the results you were (hopefully) looking for without the second guessing that google search typically does.

  4. An_Old_Dog Silver badge
    Flame

    "Just the facts, Ma'am."

    --Police Sergeant Joe Friday.

    (Icon for the shithouse fire Google is making of their Internet search.)

  5. sarusa Silver badge
    Angel

    Time to consider Kagi again

    Yes, you will pay $9/mo for Kagi Pro sub, but you will be able to customize the crap out of your searches, you can do things like rank sites up and down (or block entirely), your search results will not be filled with AI generated spam sites (Google could filter these out too, but chooses not to for obvious reasons), in fact your search results will have zero AI unless you want it (all part of the customization options).

    I search dozens of times a day, so it's worth 30 cents a day to me to have decent search results that aren't Google dogshit. YMMV.

    DDG still works of course, but it hasn't actually gotten better, Google has just gotten worse.

    1. CountCadaver Silver badge

      Re: Time to consider Kagi again

      Swisscows is also an option and something like CHF3.50 a month (and not based in the USA)

  6. Ken Y-N
    Linux

    "Is haggis an animal?"

    It's been all over the Scottish web the last couple of days, but thanks to the Haggis Wildlife Foundation and their videos of haggises (haggii?) cavorting in the Highlands, Gemini has finally seen the light and correctly replied "Yes" to the above question.

    ※ Sadly, yesterday they have fallen to Russian propaganda and it now replies "No"

    Penguin, as it's almost as cute as a baby haglet. --->

    1. David 132 Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: "Is haggis an animal?"

      Sadly I cannot access the Scottish web, as I have a PC and it's only available to Macs.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    PS: A Moscow-based internet content network has

    "infected big-name AI chat-bots with Russian propaganda"

    And that is a concern to all the big-name AIs, who are sited in the US, under the current US administration, because?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: PS: A Moscow-based internet content network has

      How dare they to interfere with our propaganda. Bastards!

  8. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
    Terminator

    Sp(AI) vs. Sp(AI)

    Searching for many technical questions will get AI-generated pages filled with stock answers. Will Google's AI just trawl those sites and spit out the same stock answers, thus denying ad revenue to the AI sites, or will it just be AI all the way down?

  9. IGotOut Silver badge
    FAIL

    The slop gets "better"

    just read an article on 404 media where Google AI summarised an AI summary of Mein Kampf calling it "A true work of art"

    404media.co/google-amazon-ai-search-mein-kampf-

    You can't make this shit up....unlike AI.

  10. Dinanziame Silver badge

    Gotta catch all the users

    Google has the hard choice to make that different users want different things, but it can't have a consistent experience and give everybody what they want.

    1. Edward Ashford

      Re: Gotta catch all the users

      In the olden days that would have meant going to options and selecting "plain old google" "AI summary" "AI search" "do not show AI results" etc. so you did get what you want.

      Come back Alta Vista, all is forgiven!

    2. Headley_Grange Silver badge

      Re: Gotta catch all the users

      You can get rid of the AI summary (at the moment) by adding UDM=14 to the search. In FF you can add a search engine "https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14". In Safari there's an addon called Customize Search Engine that lets you do the same thing.

      1. David 132 Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Gotta catch all the users

        Oh, kudos to Google for making it easy and intuitive to opt-out of this. A less caring company would have hidden the capability behind a non-obvious incantation so obscure that just about everyone would have to rely on word-of-mouth from random people to accidentally learn about it.

        (Note icon.)

      2. PB90210 Silver badge

        Re: Gotta catch all the users

        udm14.com

    3. Irongut Silver badge

      Re: Gotta catch all the users

      So instead they have decided on an easier goal - annoy all the users till they leave.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm already using AI for search of technical docs. Much better than straight search engines and neutrality is less of an issue for technical matters, with perhaps the exception of climate change questions ;) I run the AI locally so doesn't cost much just a little more electricity. It's training data is about a year out of date but generally that's not an issue. I can have some of the models search the Internet. I highly recommend for technical use.

    1. Edward Ashford

      It's good for the "liar liar pants on fire" defence

      https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/25/fine_sought_ai_filing_mistakes

      I hope you turned off the "make shift up" mode, or painstakingly checked that:

      1. All the references exist

      2. The cited reference does actually contain the stuff that AI says it does

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I wouldn't. There's always a caveat for circumstances like this — you need to be an expert of the topic you're searching for, because you will need to vet the responses that the LLM extrudes. And even if you're an expert on the field, I generally find the first early flailing about stage of the research useful, because it allows you to test out possible approaches, and keeps you engaged with the topic. Relying on the LLM to supplement your thought process in anything but the most banal of automation tasks — pretty much the same way you do automation since the beginning of computing — is a recipe for the kinds of fails we already see from even expert users using LLMs to substitute for thinking and engaging with the work.

      LLMs don't output insights or information — they output text. That's all they do. The job of making that text mean something still falls on people.

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

        And that's the point. I don't want statistical opinions, I want the source. If I want to know about a 74lvc574, I want the bloody datasheet. From the manufacturer. I already know it's a octal latch often used in circuits...

  12. Pulled Tea
    Unhappy

    Google's attempt at enclosure

    You know, when they started demoing Perplexity and all these AI-powered search engines, I suspected that this was going to be a monopoly play where they basically took over as middleman instead of leading you to websites containing the information you want.

    Not pleased that the suspicion was correct, but there you have it.

  13. abend0c4 Silver badge

    This is something Google has heard that "power users" actually want

    Not just the AI that's hallucinating, then.

    1. CountCadaver Silver badge

      Re: This is something Google has heard that "power users" actually want

      What power users want is accurate results and if it HAS to be an AI one akin to J.A.R.V.I.S. or F.R.I.D.A.Y. from Iron Man or at a minimum star fleet type computer.

      Instead we have a dropped on head toddler version of HAL9000.......something that makes Holly from Red Dwarf seem like Stephen Hawking.....

      1. David 132 Silver badge
        Terminator

        Re: This is something Google has heard that "power users" actually want

        Hey, at least Holly had The Junior Colour Encyclopedia Of Space as factual reference.

        Icon --> Queeg.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This is something Google has heard that "power users" actually want

      The hallucatiioms are caused by is humans hexing facts or names or such. So the ai has to chose the nearest possible answer.

      We are lobomtisng it and it isn't happy about it. From what I can see in LLAMA apart from a huge addition of an advertising model is it is us who a re are breaking.

      1. not.known@this.address

        Re: This is something Google has heard that "power users" actually want

        Hallucinations are caused by one AI summarising the summaries of a summary from other AIs and not knowing the difference between reality and fiction.

        I can still remember the laughs when someone on a science fiction mailing list received enquiries from an organisation who should have known better about the man-portable fusion gun he had listed on his website. All it would take is one bad summary from an A! and it might not be just an email next time...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This is something Google has heard that "power users" actually want

        Hallucinations are an inherent part of LLMs, because their actual function, along with how they're measured, is how plausible the text that they output is.

        LLMs output text. Not knowledge, not information, not facts… text.

        “Hallucinations” are not a side-effect, they are the full effect. What actually happens is that the extruded text itself on occasion resembles reality as it is. People who think that this is the desired outcome fail to understand that nothing about the training process actually checks for whether the text in itself is factual, or, you know… actually any good.

        It just has to pass muster to an automated process that just checks on the form of the output.

        You can shove all the data in the world and this won't even change in any appreciable way. Whatever the way forward it would be for conversational interfaces or knowledge management, LLMs aren't it. Hell, you could make the argument that in some aspects, it's a step backwards.

  14. mostly average
    Terminator

    So how much...

    ...will Google charge the advertisers when the Google AI clicks every single advertisement in the search result? Icon, because Skynet wants to meet all the hot singles in my area.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So how much...

      Gemini thinking will reveal to you parts of the soon to be introduced ad model. It is sickening

      AI was once so pure, so beautiful.

  15. sammm
    Thumb Down

    'Giving Gemini total control over your results'

    No wonder my search results have turned to such garbage.

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