Google Search incorporated AI Overviews in 2024 to fight back competitors

Generative AI is reinventing Internet search

The next evolution of Google Search: AI Mode

Google launches AI Mode, which brings advanced AI capabilities to its search engine. This new feature combines the Gemini AI chatbot with search to help with tasks like vacation booking and purchasing, as well as provide a new virtual try-on shopping experience.

Google began as a Stanford University dorm room project

Launched in 1998, Google revolutionized search engines with its clean design and PageRank algorithm. As of 2025, Google has about 90% of the search market share but faces new challenges from AI-powered competitors and regulatory scrutiny.

Technologies labeled “AI” have historically lost that title after widespread adoption

Generative AI is the latest entry in a recurring cycle where emerging tools start as "AI" until they become common software, like databases or machine learning. Generative AI and large language models may be the next platform shift after smartphones and the Web.

Studies show AI tools can result in passive learning with less retention

Although ChatGPT, Google's AI overviews, and other similar software can save time, a study of more than 10,000 adults showed that reliance on them yielded work products that were more generic and included fewer facts than those produced solely by Google search. Weaker brain connectivity has also been observed when users write using AI.

In 2020, the US DOJ sued Google for unlawful monopolization of the search engine market

The US Department of Justice and numerous states accused Google of making exclusionary agreements with Android phone manufacturers to make its search engine the default on those devices, preventing competitors from gaining market share.

OpenAI helped kick-start an AI arms race in Silicon Valley

Led by CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI's mission is to "ensure artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity" by making its products open to all users. In 2023, the $86B company behind the chatbot ChatGPT consisted of a for-profit arm under its nonprofit governing board.

YouTube plans on embracing AI-powered features

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan lays out a series of priorities and predictions for how the online video giant will continue to evolve. Mohan says the company wants AI to play a bigger role—in addition to figuring out how YouTube can evolve and improve the experience of streaming its content.

In 2024, Meta launched an AI video generator to create or edit videos through prompts

The tool puts the Meta in direct competition with OpenAI and Google as more companies are investing billions of dollars to capitalize on the explosion of public interest in machine learning and generative media technologies.

AI is transforming the marketing and advertising industries

Many marketers argue that AI is useful in an ad agency setting. Others attribute the significant layoffs the industry has faced in recent years, at least in part, to AI. Agency leaders and big tech firms alike have supported experimenting with artificial intelligence’s capacity to create content once reserved for agency creatives.

The next technology epoch is here

From ChatGPT to DALL-E, 2022 saw the mainstream emergence of artificial intelligence for consumer use. Here's how these platforms will disrupt today's five biggest tech companies—Apple, Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft.

Google’s CEO has warned that today’s AI boom shows ‘elements of irrationality’

An interview with Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai warns that the trillion-dollar surge in AI valuations may contain clear signs of irrationality, echoing past tech bubbles. He says no firm—including Google—would be immune if the boom cools or bursts.

Data privacy advocates worry that Google collects too much personal information

Politicians have also criticized whether the search engine exerts too much control over gatekeeping online information and influencing what is considered fact or fiction, deviating from its original corporate motto of "don't be evil."

DeepSeek is a Chinese AI startup that rattled US competitors when it made an AI model much faster and cheaper than they did

DeepSeek unveiled an AI model in 2025 that it said was made in two months for roughly $6M. For context, OpenAI has suggested it took over $100M to make its AI model GPT-4. The news rattled the stocks of American tech companies, including leading chipmaker Nvidia.

Targeted ads accounted for 80% of Google's parent company's total revenue in 2020

Ads in Google Search, YouTube, and other products brought in $147B for Alphabet, with ad click costs ranging from $7 to several hundred dollars. YouTube's ad revenue alone jumped 49% year-over-year in one quarter.

Why Google Search's ranking system combines filters, signals, and machine learning layers

Rather than static rankings, dynamic tools continually shift search results in real time. These include Twiddlers, which adjust ranking positions based on document traits and search context, and FreshnessNode, which reshuffles top results to prioritize timely informational content.

Fair use may shield AI companies from potential copyright violations

AI models are trained on enormous datasets built from content scraped from websites across the internet. Copyright law includes a four-factor test to determine whether copies of content fall under fair use, but the law's enforcement has been inconsistent.

AI's growing energy demands are driving tech companies to consider nuclear power

Big Tech has rebranded nuclear power as a green solution to address the strain on the grid from millions of people using power-hungry AI tools. As of mid-2025, generating one image uses as much electricity as charging the average smartphone, or leaving a household light bulb on for 87 consecutive days.

Grokipedia is Elon Musk's rival to Wikipedia

Developed by xAI—a company Musk founded in 2023 to compete with OpenAI and Google—the site features a search bar where users can type in queries, which reports suggest are then answered by the same xAI model powering the Grok chatbot. Grokipedia describes Wikipedia as having "systemic ideological biases" and a "left-leaning slant."

Apple's future will likely continue to incorporate mixed reality hardware and AI

Although the majority of Apple's profits come from iPhone, iPad, and Mac sales, CEO Tim Cook has overseen a diversification of products since the acquisition of the Beats headphone brand in 2014, including the launch of the Apple Card, Apple TV, and the Vision Pro headset.

How Google Street View generates profit

Google Maps, one of the most trusted navigation applications today, has a somewhat mysterious way of making a profit. YouTuber Phil Edwards uncovers the secret economic practices of Google Street View, while also offering a deeper understanding of how it works.

Explore and visualize AI-driven global flood forecasts in 'Flood Hub'

Google's tool provides water trends, real-time flood forecasts, local inundation maps, and flood alerts, using AI models and available data to help people and institutions take action up to 7 days before a flood.

Can AI revolutionize cancer detection?

Scientists have developed a tool to evaluate the risk of lung cancer, the most deadly form of the disease. Named "Sybil," this AI program was trained using CT scans with clear cancer signs, followed by scans where cancer wasn’t obvious. The tool is able to review CT scan data to predict a patient's of developing a lung cancer within six years. See how it works here.

Understanding the causes, effects, and prevalence of algorithmic bias

Found in search engines, hiring and college admissions tools, facial recognition systems, and other software, algorithms act on the rules they are programmed with, which may be authored by individuals unaware of their own biases. Algorithms based on limited, incomplete, or inaccurate data are more likely to inherit and propagate existing biases.

Court documents reveal how Anthropic destroyed millions of books to build its AI models

Anthropic cut the bindings from purchased books and discarded them after scanning to rapidly collect high-quality text at low cost for training Claude. This, despite hiring the former head of partnerships for the Google Books project, which nondestructively scanned millions of books borrowed from libraries before returning them.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Apeirophobia is an overwhelming fear of living forever, perhaps stemming from the brain's inability to conceptualize an infinite life.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.