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Benefits and a Warning for Older Adults About Google’s New AI Search
The path between a question and an answer has just gotten a lot shorter, tech giant says
Illustration: Rob Dobi
Artificial intelligence (AI) is about to change the way most of us search and consume information across the internet.
The company synonymous with search wants to lead this shift. You can begin tooling around with some features immediately.
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“Let Google do the Googling for you” was a refrain the tech giant repeated during its annual developer conference in California’s Silicon Valley this week. The promise for older adults and consumers of any age is searches that can connect you with the information you’re seeking much faster — and with far fewer steps to get there.
The steps that get knocked out could mean that websites from your local newspaper to AARP will have fewer people visiting their pages because Google will answer many users’ questions before they click through to a site. You’ll see the battle between what’s called content creation and content curation — research, reporting and writing vs. presentation of that work — play out for years to come.
AI search summarizes details, compiles a solution
Most notably, Google is expanding a generative AI feature it calls AI Overview, rolling out to users across the United States with other countries to follow. The feature leans into what Google refers to as multistep reasoning and leverages its Gemini AI model, the company’s answer to AI rivals such as Microsoft’s Copilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
More than a billion people will have access to these AI-generated summaries by year’s end, Google says. But if you don’t want to wait, head to labs.google.com to try an experimental version.
If the AI Overview answers that Google surfaces are spot on — since AIs still tend to hallucinate or make things up, nothing is guaranteed — who wouldn’t want a streamlined approach that gets to the heart of a search in a blink?
On stage during the conference, Google’s head of search, Liz Reid, demonstrated one way the feature works: Say you’re new to an area and looking for a popular Pilates or yoga studio that offers discounted rates close to your house. Try a query like this: “Find the best yoga or Pilates studios in Boston, and show me details on their intro offers and walking time from Beacon Hill.”
An older adult might add this to the query: “I’m 50 and want to work out with people mostly my own age.”
The warning: You may have to scroll to find source material
Having done the legwork on your behalf, Google delivers a summary with most of the information a person might want, including prices, introductory promotions, business hours and locations plotted on a map. Yes, Google’s answer will have ads and web links for those who want to investigate further.
Then I entered my own query, “How can I entertain an elderly parent living alone?” The AI Overview summary segmented the answer into games and puzzles; TV, movies or music; video calling; and social media. I had to scroll down the page to find related “People also ask …” queries and farther down still to find familiar blue links.
Folks can take advantage of Google’s revamped search across all the places they normally search, meaning desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones.
Refine your scenario. The bot changes its answer
Google soon will add AI-generated planning tools that will let you search along the lines of “Create a 5-day meal plan for my grandparents with easy-to-prepare low-salt recipes from across the web.” After the initial query, you might refine the search with “Make all the dinner recipes vegetarian but avoid onions.”
Wondering what to search for? Google can brainstorm
Sometimes you’re not exactly sure what to ask Google. Another upcoming search feature, dubbed “AI-organized” results, may help you brainstorm. Say you’re looking to celebrate a milestone birthday or anniversary. Google will categorize search results under AI-generated headlines.
For example, if you want ideas for where to go for a 25th anniversary dinner, you may find results under romantic steakhouses, historic charm and elegance, live music and intimate settings, and rooftop patios for dates. Google plans to initially roll out the AI-organized feature around dining and recipes, followed by movies, music, books, hotels and shopping.
Can’t describe a thingamajig? Show Gemini a video
Later this year, you’ll also be able to search using video. Google outlined how this might work.
Say someone bought a record player at a thrift store but found that the metal piece with the needle — the person doesn’t know what this part is called — is drifting. Complicating the problem: The buyer doesn’t know the make or model number of the record player, much less how to fix it.
Rather than try to explain the problem in detail, the person uploads a video and asks Google, “Why does this thing not stay in place?” The hope is you’ll get an AI Overview with troubleshooting steps.
Google can analyze, categorize your photos
People take and share lots of photos these days, in large part because they have a smartphone with a camera at their fingertips. But finding the photos you need quickly can mean taking a lot of time to tag images yourself.
Traditional search has gotten better at finding famous people or locales in a virtual pile of digital images. But everyday stuff? Not so much. An experimental Gemini search called Ask Photos that is coming to Google Photos this summer can help.
Chief executive Sundar Pichai described a couple of scenarios. In one, you’re at a parking garage ready to pay but have to supply the car’s license plate number. You can’t remember it.
Previously, you might have entered keywords to try to pore over multiple automotive images inside Google Photos and maybe find one that shows your license plate. But the Ask Photos feature lets Google find it for you, using AI to analyze location and other data. If successful, you’ll receive a text with the license number and picture.
Pichai also said you might explore the feature to reminisce about your daughter’s swimming lessons: “When did Lucia learn to swim?” Then you can follow up with something more complex: “Show me how Lucia’s swimming has progressed.”
Gemini will search Google Photos to surface pics of her swimming laps in the pool, snorkeling in the ocean and receiving a swimming certificate, packaged in a summary that will help you reflect.
Traditional search still works, Google says
Not every search query will lend itself to an AI Overview result. That’s left for the more complex searches. And expect to hear people ponder the amount of information Google has on each of us.
But the fundamental shifts in search are likely permanent. Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner research predicted this year that by 2026, search engine volume will fall by 25 percent because of the efficiency of AI chatbots.
Audibly chat with OpenAI’s latest chatbot
And chatbots themselves continue to get smarter and evolve. Just ahead of the Google conference, OpenAI showcased GPT-4o — the lowercase “o” stands for Omni. People can converse naturally with the emotive chatbot.
OpenAI demonstrated how the bot can analyze a person’s mood by viewing an expression through a smartphone camera. It showed how the bot could read stories aloud and change the tone of its narration on the fly, pivoting to requests to read dramatically, then in a robotic voice and then singing.
The bot, which can be prompted by voice, images and video, will be available on phones and computers next week. And it will be free.
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