Generative AI is reinventing Internet search

Google Search incorporated AI Overviews in 2024 to fight back competitors

Analysts believe that generative AI tools—not antitrust rulings—are Google's biggest threat because they draw users away from traditional search and potential ad revenue. AI partnerships, like the one between Apple and OpenAI, may further reduce Google's market share.

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.

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.

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.

AI gained mainstream attention with tools like IBM Watson and Apple’s Siri

With the release of ChatGPT in 2022, which drew over 100 million weekly users in just two months, natural language processing and understanding could be achieved at scale via machine learning. Unlike earlier artificial intelligence that could pull stored knowledge, generative AI produces text, images, or sounds.

Google invented the foundation of the AI movement—but ChatGPT was a shock

For years, Google was the cutting-edge of the AI world, including the development of the Transformer—the basis of contemporary AI chatbots. But since OpenAI debuted ChatGPT in 2022, the company was had to play catch-up. This is a four-hour deep dive into Google's AI history.

Researchers found that by mid-2025, around 35% of newly published websites utilized AI for language generation

The study also found that pages using AI narrow the range of ideas and perspectives and skew more positively, though the measurable impacts on factual accuracy and writing style variation remain unclear.

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.

The AI that creates any picture you want and how it works

Since January 2021, advances in AI research produced a plethora of deep-learning models capable of generating original images from simple text prompts. Researchers at OpenAI, Google, Facebook, and others have developed yet to be released text-to-image tools, and similar models have proliferated online. This video is a primer on how we got here, how the technology works, and its implications.

How AI is revolutionizing banking

Generative artificial intelligence has left no industry untouched, and banking isn’t an exception. Experts estimate that gen AI could add as much as $340B in value to the banking sector each year. For consumers, this involves new features to prevent fraud and customer service chatbots. This report dives into the revolution underway and seeks to define a “full stack” AI bank of the future. Read more here.

Microsoft has integrated AI across its software products with Copilot

It utilizes an underlying model from OpenAI—makers of ChatGPT—to assist users in creating documents, writing code, locating files, and more across Windows, Microsoft 365, Bing search and WhatsApp on desktop and mobile devices. Copilot Voice and Vision offer accessibility features for users who prefer not to use mouse/keyboard navigation.

Google reveals the top searches of 2023

Google Search remains the world's most popular online search engine, and the tech behemoth reveals the most common searches from at the end of every year. See global as well as more local trends in most common searches for people, films, and more.

How generative AI differs from machine learning

Compared to machine learning - which is sort of like teaching a toddler how to recognize what a dog looks like by showing them images of one - generative AI is like teaching that same child how to actually draw a dog. Unlike machine learning, generative AI can actually generate. Read this article for a more in-depth comparison between these two types of artificial intelligence.

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.

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.

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.

Google's early focus on simplicity and user experience drove its future successes

Google Search revolutionized information retrieval in 1998, but additional web-based products, including Gmail, Maps, Docs, and YouTube reinforced the company's core ad business while allowing it to aggregate the world's information. Forming Alphabet protected this business from riskier moonshot projects.

View a timeline of AI deployments from 2017 to 2025

The development of transformer architecture and the release of GPTs across AI labs led to rapid changes in LLM scale and power. Companies like OpenAI, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Anthropic have invested billions of dollars to develop reliable, versatile models.

What we learned about Google

Google processes over 8.5 billion searches every day—more than the number of people on Earth. This short breakdown covers how the company evolved from a Stanford research project into a global tech leader, with products like YouTube, Gmail, and Android reaching billions worldwide.

See the news with AI-generated data visualizations

Realtime uses generative AI to create immediate data visualizations of news items on its regularly-updated feed, pulling from public data feeds. Peruse stories around sports, economics, politics, and more with the helpful aid of charts and graphs. See the shape of the news with this clever AI tool here.

Governments are now using generative AI to manipulate public opinion

A Freedom House report found that AI-powered disinformation campaigns and censorship tactics are spreading, with 16 countries utilizing the technology to shape online narratives or suppress dissent, as of 2023. In Venezuela, deepfake software was used to push pro-government propaganda with fake news anchors.

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.

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.

Google only sorts and searches a fraction of the overall internet

The "surface web," consisting of billions of public webpages, excludes nonindexed digital content, such as corporate intranets and email inboxes. A deeper layer, called the dark web, is also hidden and requires special software to access.

Generative AI may automate nearly 10% of tasks in the US economy

This automation is expected to impact both low- and high-wage roles, with those in customer service, food service, and office support being most likely to be affected. Large-scale investments in upskilling will be necessary to help individuals find new employment opportunities.

Indirect prompt injection is a major security flaw of generative AI systems

These attacks can manipulate AI behavior by hiding instructions in websites and PDFs that become part of training data. The more companies connect sites, services, and sensitive datasets to AI tools, the greater the chances of exposure to malicious code.

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."

The major AI industry players are creating a web of circular investments

Bloomberg created a network diagram that shows how companies like Nvidia and OpenAI are fueling the AI money machine. The chart shows that many top AI companies provide significant investments to one another.

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.

A brief history of artificial intelligence

The concept of artificial intelligence and what it may mean for humanity has evolved as computer technologies have grown increasingly powerful through the decades. Beginning with the first (massive) computers in the 1940s, scientists have sought to make the machines as intelligent as humans. But it wasn't until computing power made exponential gains have computers begun to imitate human behavior.

Google Search includes over 50 Easter eggs hidden behind specific search terms

Some queries—besides providing search results—trigger additional effects on the site, including tilting the page after searching for "askew," having the page perform dance moves to the song after searching for "[cha-cha slide]," and the ability to play a version of block breaker after searching for "Atari breakout."

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.

Nvidia entered its AI era after learning that its chips could be used in industries beyond gaming

Its semiconductor chips were used in the automotive industry, for data centers, and by crypto miners. And starting in 2006, Nvidia took steps that would ultimately transform it into the AI company it’s known as today. This podcast is the second part of a three-part series diving deep into Nvidia’s company evolution.

How companies track you around the internet, explained

Being able to track how users behave on websites is a massive opportunity for companies to hone their products, target their ads, and more. Dozens of trackers are on the average website you visit, depending on how you deal with that site's cookie policy, and Google is the chief tracker of them all. Learn about these companies and what they are tracking with this informative blog visualization.

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."

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.

Play 'Quick, Draw!' to help train Google's neural networks

Players are tasked with drawing objects, and Google’s AI—which has been trained on millions of user-submitted doodles—tries to guess what’s being sketched. Over 50 million drawings across 345 categories have been created and can be reviewed by users.

Social media algorithms are shaping real-life language through memes

The evolution of the internet in the early 2000s supercharged the creation and spread of memetic content. Now, highly tuned algorithms on platforms like TikTok and YouTube influence the language, phrasing, and content of creators, which shapes how we use language in the real world.

Artificial intelligence may further enhance smart city data analysis

Identifying patterns within systems in the Internet of Things may enable AI tools to make informed decisions regarding transportation, safety, and sustainability without human intervention. However, such tools will also need to successfully address concerns about privacy, digital equity, and algorithmic bias.

Virtual and augmented realities are paving the way for a more immersive future

Tech companies like Apple, Meta, and Microsoft invest heavily in immersive technologies such as virtual, augmented, and mixed reality. While VR transports users to a fully digital space and AR adds digital elements to the real world, mixed reality allows interaction with both at once.

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.

What does AI mean for the future of global healthcare?

The World Economic Forum's 2023 Technology Pioneers are a collection of groundbreaking leaders from over 30 countries who are striving to shape the future by addressing a range of global challenges. In the World Economic Forum's recent article, these pioneers convened to discuss the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning within the healthcare sector.

How Google's Tilt Brush brings artists' creations to life

Google has been working closely with more than 60 artists to help them explore their style in virtual reality as part of the Tilt Brush Artist in Residence program.

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.

As of 2025, the internet is entering its fourth phase, with three more to go

Since the inception of the internet as a tool for connecting teams of researchers, technological and infrastructure advancements have progressively increased connectivity. Connections between computers, mobile devices, all devices, and now AI agents will be succeeded by an internet that integrates perception and the senses toward an eventual quantum internet.

Listen to Palantir CEO Alex Karp's outlook for how AI will change the economy

Palantir was an early leader in developing and implementing AI into its technology. When asked about the potential risks of AI (like the threat many say it poses to so-called "knowledge workers"), Karp has said that specialized knowledge or skills will inevitably become more valuable.

Google banned ads for loans due within 60 days and interest rates exceeding 36% or higher

In 2016, Google said it would stop allowing payday lenders to advertise on the search engine. According to the company, this decision was made to protect users from deceptive and harmful financial products.

Using deep learning to analyze tumors

The explosive growth of life sciences data is driving artificial intelligence methods to gain traction in biology and medicine — including cancer research.

NVIDIA named several computer chip architectures after Grace Hopper

Unveiled in 2023, the GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip, designed for generative AI applications in data center-scale systems, combines a Grace CPU with a Hopper GPU to create a coherent memory model. This allows the Hopper to access Grace data directly, reducing the need to repeatedly copy data back and forth and vastly improving performance.