Wow, what a terrible marketing video.<p>Everything is moving so fast, I can't really tell what I'm supposed to get out of it. All the videos playing in the search results seem highly irrelevant, I assume this won't be in the actual product, the marketing folks just thought it looks cool?<p>In the end, all I got out of it, as a technical person, is that there will be an LLM engine in there.
"Search will keep evolving to answer any question in any format"<p>I can't help but think who/what is going to pay/feed the training data for all this innovation.<p>As a content creator, this feels like the bottom in the race to the bottom. Google was already keeping users on their site as long as possible (e.g. snippets), this will only worsen the bounce ratio from content creators like local news sites & niche blogs (worse ad performance, less sign-ups) who fuel traffic. It also feels like an extinction event for sites like StackOverlflow and Quora, gamification to get users to write 'free' content will die-off if Google keeps front-running sites like this.<p>I feel Google will eventually need to go into the content creation/syndication business to keep all this going (and pay up vs. Google News), because the incentives for everyone else are just not there, if they want to keep everyone on Google.
I really thought that Bing + OpenAI could take a slice out of Google, but this looks very competitive (based on the slick marketing video). And it's all Google's own tech unlike the Microsoft deal.
You can tell that they’ve started using AI to generate the “people also search for” section in search results. Recently there’s been an uptick in complete nonsense like “how to cook a coffee grinder on the barbecue” and other such things that… quite frankly I have a hard time believing anyone on earth has ever searched.
The full keynote: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNfINi5CNbY">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNfINi5CNbY</a><p>And a 10-minutes version: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpBTM0GO6xI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpBTM0GO6xI</a>
Google feels like a stereotypical popular girl in high school. Google is well-liked and good at a myriad of things. Out of the blue, a charming new transfer student arrives, impressing everyone with her exceptional dancing prowess. Google, feeling a threat to her popularity, boldly asserts, "I'm the best dancer! I've been doing this for years! I'm popular, good-looking, and the best at everything." She then devotes weeks to choreographing a dance routine, which, while decent, doesn't quite measure up to the newcomer's flair.
I would ditch the button to ask for a follow up question and always show the input field for the follow up question, Bing style. It looks like an unnecessary step.
The cheesy, white-culture, corporate "comedy" of Google and Facebook over the years straddles the cringeworthy and sad. I wish they could just showcase the technology with some upbeat music and let the tech speak for itself. All these snarky people make me hate their product more. I now want to use ChatGPT more just to spite them.
A search engine short-circuiting organic traffic to sites it crawls to this extent seems like playing with fire when you've got a 90%+ market share and are already in the government's headlights.
This is another addition to a whole slew of tech / "hip "marketing videos inspired by the format of Apple's "iPhone 7 event in 108 seconds - Don't Blink" ad.
<a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jk6sz25OZgw&pp">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jk6sz25OZgw&pp</a><p>I think the original was pretty interesting and worked in context, but doesn't work for every product.
First thoughts on watching:<p>- Content in the video is moving pretty quickly. I need to pause the video to take a look at what's being shown.<p>- "Generative AI is experimental" and "Generative AI may be inaccurate or offensive" is the first text I see at the top of Google Search?<p>- That's a lot of AI generated content - the entire above-the-fold area is consumed. Does this negatively impact Google's ad revenue by usurping its visibility with their own generated content?<p>- No AI generated imagery - all images shown are links to embeddings on websites. This seems fine.<p>- "what planet is most similar to earth" gets multiple answers, but they all seem reasonable and helpful for exploring. A little odd that the first paragraph prominently talks about Mars/Venus, but all the supporting links diverge to planets outside of our solar system. I would think the supporting imagery would be for Mars/Venus. Not necessarily opposed to this, though, as query didn't say "in our solar system" and I'm down to explore more content.<p>- "plants for a dark dorm room" response has some weird responses. Third result says "Lucky Bamboo" and the blurb says "can handle bright or moderate light" which isn't comforting when I'm asking about darkness.<p>- I can't see the full query for the poem. It reads "write me a poem about my mischievous cat named whiskers using at least ..." which is unfortunate. The poem looks sane enough, but reads more like prose. When I reflect on the content being written... it's weird, right? "with whiskers so long and fluffy" -- what? Whiskers aren't fluffy. My <i>cat named whiskers</i> is fluffy. Unclear if the last three sentences are part of the poem and just formatted without bullet points or what happened there.<p>- "dress for an outdoor wedding in miami in may in a trending color with 2-day delivery" didn't appear to draw information from a weather forecast (says "typical weather"), would be nice to get a warning if it's going to rain etc. Response seemed to reference "bold colors" and "trending silhouettes" when query was for trending colors not trending fashion styles, but maybe bold colors are trending.<p>- why did asking follow up question "what about shoes?" show a YouTube video when I was interested in 2-day shopping selections? Was that information preserved and just not highlighted here? It's fine if so - I think cutting to a video was more impactful from a marketing perspective, but less helpful in terms of showcasing search abilities.<p>- "compare two lunch spots near me that are good for big groups" looks like a rock solid answer, nice.<p>- Using Google Search for commands like "make me a training plan for a 10k" feels foreign to me. It will take some getting used to if I'm going to repurpose Google Search for commands not just questions. Note that the response says "..if you have just started running" but that wasn't part of the request. Seems fine to assume, but not sure why it was needed.<p>- The energetic audio, fast moving content, beat pause that goes into "yes yes yes" about shoes all makes me feel like I am a bit older than their target audience (I'm 33) and/or that this content is missing the mark on how trendy and cool it thinks it is. Same goes for "is a hotdog a sandwich" -- that went viral like half a decade ago? Don't get me wrong, I loved pitching that question to people. It was my go-to icebreaker for a good year, but that time has passed for me.<p>Overall, I didn't see anything obviously wrong or explicitly embarrassing for Google, but I did not resonate with their attempt to portray themselves as hip/cool. I would've preferred a more cool/calm/collected/professional/"adult in the room" vibe that slowly showcased the overwhelming dominance of their AI abilities.
Now we wait: Will Google deliver an experience like that in the video, or will this be like the many glossy announcements which over-promised/under-delivered.
I find it fascinating that the top two comments (at the moment) are essentially saying "this marketing video is great" and "this marketing video is terrible". Would it be this polarizing if it wasn't Google?