Good morning! A Texas lawsuit will test abortion shield laws, Figs gets a takeover offer, and Google’s VP of Search must keep the everyday tool relevant in the AI era. Enjoy your Monday!
- Search is on. The rise of generative AI has led some people to question the future of Google Search. The tool so ubiquitous it became a verb for the first time faces a real challenger in this era. Would people rather get AI-generated answers to their queries than comb through search results for information?
The woman in charge of ensuring Google Search stays relevant is Liz Reid, a 20-year Google veteran who was promoted to lead Google Search earlier this year. She joined Google in 2003 as an engineer building Google Local, which laid the foundation for Google Maps. Reid joined my colleague Jeremy Kahn for a conversation at Fortune’s Brainstorm AI summit last week.
"There's always been different options with search, and we welcome that," Reid says of competition from AI-powered search engine Perplexity and other tools.
Right now, Google Search and Google's generative AI product Gemini are separate. Could they be combined one day? "I don't think we honestly know what the future holds," Reid says. In the meantime, AI can improve the Google Search experience without turning Search into a generative AI product, she argues. That could mean helping Google to understand whether the person searching prefers video results or not, whether they're an expert or someone seeking out basic information to explain a concept to their kid, whether they're deep in a research project or looking for a fast answer.
Reid argues that there's not a strict dichotomy between AI-powered answers and traditional search. "AI-generated content isn't by itself intrinsically bad," she says. Yet whichever path Google Search takes, trust will be paramount—the need for it is reinforced by searches that add "Reddit" to the end of any query, seeking answers from real people. "People, especially younger users, really want to hear from the authentic voices," Reid says. "They want to hear from the people they trust."
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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