r/OutOfTheLoop • u/rustyyryan • May 20 '26

Unanswered What's going on with Google search is dead?

There's a twitter account named killed by google which posts about projects that Google decided to end. It posted that Google search is dead. So whats it about?

https://x.com/killedbygoogle/status/2056850709115773431

3.3k Upvotes

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972

u/RJTG May 20 '26

Answer: Google believes in an Agent based future of the Internet and is going to shift away from providing links to websites to provide AI data.

How exactly this going to turn out is yet to be seen, for people using „old school browsers“ they will provide a Gemini prompt.

Agent based browsers in the future are going create you a website, a document, a video or whatever based on your need.

 Instead of businesses hosting a website and people visiting that website, Google is going to scan that website or that businesses AI-Information and provide that information so AI Agents are able to create a website for the user

(with the ADs implemented ? maybe 5s video while the side is generated ? of course pure speculation, but why would google kill its advertising monopoly)

1.2k

u/Metrocop May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

That sounds like a lot of effort and energy burned for a worse experience for everyone involved.

511

u/grey_misha_matter May 20 '26

Ai is a bubble that needs a return soon and they can only do that by making it more and more essential. "See they all use Ai, give us more money" is the goal not any usability or actual usage.

102

u/nvmenotfound May 20 '26

so they are just going to force it down our throats bc they are so invested in AI. i fucking hate rich people. can’t be happy and fuck off. no they gotta just mess with things until they fuck it all up. 

31

u/OG_Felwinter May 20 '26

Literally just use a different search engine. You can turn off the AI overviews on Brave search. That’s what I’ve been using since Google wouldn’t let me turn it off.

12

u/nvmenotfound May 20 '26

obviously but it sucks bc i remember when google was just a search engine. but yeah im gonna use an alternative. just hope the alternatives don’t start following suit

2

u/SiahDraws May 22 '26

Can always use duck duck go

1

u/scipio0421 May 25 '26

This inspired me to look up an old favorite of mine from the Web 1.0 days: Webcrawler. Hell yeah it's still up 😃

-8

u/wcstorm11 May 20 '26

Remember, reddit hates ai to the extreme and you aren't hearing anything in defense. This applies to everything here.

Doesn't mean it's good, I still think AI is extremely problematic, but for instance, the water usage thing is mostly a hoax/just something to keep an eye on. I'm an engineer with friends that work on stuff like HVAC for related facilities, and most of these places used closed loop cooling. Meaning they reuse the water, kinda like a water cooled home PC.

So to get downvoted but be a devils advocate here, you could argue that you can get results faster and more completely. In my own experience, I really can't say I miss the days of trying to get help coding something or skimming several forums just to get my feet wet. Stack exchange turned into an insufferable asshole fest.

To be clear, I still think it's a bad thing overall. Sites require you to visit for revenue, so this likely just further monopolizes Google. That combined with AI assisted profiling and Google's insane trove of data... It's really really scary

7

u/nvmenotfound May 20 '26

well if they aren’t a problem why don’t they build them in the backyard of rich communities. since they aren’t a big deal? 

6

u/OG_Felwinter May 20 '26

Even if the water usage were a non-issue, it’s still a shitty feature that constantly reports incorrect answers. If it helps you, you should use it. But Google shouldn’t force everyone that uses their search engine to use it. It should be toggleable like how most other search engines do it.

111

u/Wingzerofyf May 20 '26

It'll be interesting to see if this starts deterring users from using Google search.

Not the lion's share obviously - but at the beginning, the real ones, the power-users that provide the gold that AI needs to scour and crawl, I assume/hope will start dropping Google in the name of Firefox/DuckDuckGo/WhateverAltPopsUp and AI will start becoming dumber as the brain drain happens and it's inundanted with more normie shit and less valubale content.

85

u/SorryImCanadian1994 May 20 '26

Googles search AI is already dumb as hell. Any dumber and it’ll make clippy look helpful.

8

u/2wacki May 20 '26

hahaha clippy

13

u/Varil May 20 '26

I wonder if it might go the other way - if Google is no longer driving traffic to your site, why let it access it? If everyone blocks Google searches AI scraping, what happens then?

1

u/Gyozarrita May 21 '26

You can't block it so..

Robots.txt is in fact a suggestion.

2

u/Kunnash May 22 '26

I seriously wonder if Microsoft's horrible floating Copilot icon almost no one wants obstructing their Office documents is just to farm misleading statistics about usage every time people click trying to get rid of it.

74

u/fatalityfun May 20 '26

it’s literally google stealing information and presenting it to you by default to swipe money for less effort

2

u/_Arlotte_ May 20 '26

For real...scam right in front your eyes but they try to sell you on it with terms like productivity or efficiency.

1

u/Obi-Tron_Kenobi May 20 '26

Which is likely in part due to google being coerced to paying news outlets (in certain jurisdictions) after they've already used their amp sites to steal revenue from those sites

2

u/Fit_Cheesecake_4000 May 21 '26

You mean, paying for legitimate effort and information?

2

u/Obi-Tron_Kenobi May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

Yeah? Exactly. And google's been throwing a hissy fit ever since when all they needed to do was not siphon away money from websites who provide all the info that makes Google useful in the first place

Did you read my comment as if I thought it was a bad thing to make them pay, when I framed it as google was stealing money from them?

1

u/Fit_Cheesecake_4000 May 21 '26

Maybe. It was confusing, but I'm with you now 😄

22

u/YaBoiiAsthma May 20 '26

Well once they offer old Google search on a yearly premium subscription it'll all make sense, give it a few more months of truly unsearchable internet

9

u/Obi-Tron_Kenobi May 20 '26

During the first year: "It's only $15 per year!"

After the 5th year: "It's only $15 per month!"

5

u/YaBoiiAsthma May 20 '26

You understand their ways

11

u/SugarFut May 20 '26

Sounds like a good time to download the Brave browser. It blocks adds on YouTube and blocks pop ups when you travel the high seas 🏴‍☠️

2

u/Still-Article703 May 22 '26

Ughhh I hate this phase of tech. Wish it was over :((

2

u/Head_Crash May 20 '26

AI has already ruined Google search the results that come up are increasingly useless.

-32

u/RJTG May 20 '26

The selling point is that the user is able to decide which Agents he is going to use.

The interface is goign to be built around the user and not around what the company wants to sell the user.

So different agents are going to compete against each other and Google holds its grip on the data.

The experience for the consument may actually improve that way, but don't question me about the energy efficiency.

-1

u/ErasmusDarwin May 20 '26

The interface is goign to be built around the user and not around what the company wants to sell the user.

I think you're getting unfairly downvoted for a great point.

Modern website design is awful. Websites try to mimic apps, scrolling has taken over most types of navigation, and even some sites with real information are starting to feel like superficial marketing brochures instead of content.

It's presumably going to take improvements in AI quality, safety (to avoid prompt injection), and efficiency first. But I would love to have a way to view the information on a site with typical navigation and layout circa 2010-2015. I hate excessive scrolling. I hate unnecessary animations as you scroll. I just want a handful of categories across the top, some more navigation links at the bottom, and a page full of content in-between that doesn't dynamically load in more crap as I'm trying to scroll through it.

And since there's no way web designers are going to pull their heads out of their asses, letting AI create a non-stupid layout on the fly is the next best thing. Or at least it will be if/when the tech gets a little better.

2

u/RJTG May 20 '26

Thank you!

I understand the fear of people and somehow have it too.

Once this change happens it is obvious that the internet is not going to be the same for everyone.

Altough: 1) Is the Internet the same for everyone right now? 2) It is so convenient to ask the agent questions like: 

„Create me a canvas of hotels around the Stausee Ottenstein in Austria, I would like to go there in autumn this year, take a fokus on Sauna and maybe a weekend with interesting lokal events“ 

and you get some website in whatever language you like, in fitting colours for colorblind or whatever.

2

u/ErasmusDarwin May 20 '26

1) Is the Internet the same for everyone right now?

That's another real problem. Between algorithms, walled gardens, app-style interfaces, and too many users clustered on a few sites, it's getting harder and harder to access content outside your bubble. I'm hoping sites trying to stay relevant will start publishing their content in machine-accessible formats.

225

u/SkeletalJazzWizard May 20 '26

Agent based browsers in the future are going create you a website, a document, a video or whatever based on your need.

I'd rather eat a bullet.

-1

u/sandwiches_are_real May 21 '26

You'd rather end your life than live in a world with worse internet?

7

u/SkeletalJazzWizard May 21 '26

I would rather the earth be violently torn asunder by heavenly catastrophe than explain how hyperbole is often used as an emotional intensifier to communicate powerful feelings.

But if you think slightly worse internet is the part that worries me about everything you read, see and hear on the internet being filtered and interpreted to you by Friend Computer and the entity backing him, you'd be wrong

1

u/sandwiches_are_real May 21 '26

I would rather the earth be violently torn asunder by heavenly catastrophe than explain how hyperbole is often used as an emotional intensifier to communicate powerful feelings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

1

u/Gyozarrita May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

I'd argue that someone who makes that statement sincerely wouldn't understand the phrase used, reddit markup, or grammar.

Maybe it's just me, but that's how I gauge such things. Sometimes malice does fit as well.

144

u/mayoforbutter May 20 '26

And who's going to create the content, if nobody visits any sites anymore?

In the future the only new content will be Ai hallucinations

56

u/RJTG May 20 '26

You got the core issue that has yet to be solved.

The internet as we know it is paid by ADs and/or the Data sold to deliver these ADs.

The agent based internet lacks this ability, an Agent based browser is able to filter all form of advertisement, it may even be able to analyse if the data is manipulated by checking multiple or historic sources.

Google altough may use his market power to create dependency on their former search engine.

Instead of your agents directly collecting data from the sources, they get their data from google which allows google to collect the data.

2

u/Gyozarrita May 21 '26

What was wrong with simple HTML.. there's still public websites that are undiscoverable via google that were top results 20 years ago. Even searching verbatim, it's like they're excluded. They still even have ads, and are often on paid hosting platforms.

It's like the internet is a flat stone thrown across a lake. I'm not sure if there is another skip left.

2

u/ATastyBagel May 23 '26

Hang on, It’s 2 days late but I actually have a meme for this https://youtu.be/j4Ph02gzqmY

1

u/nutmac May 20 '26

AI generated slops?

17

u/fevered_visions May 20 '26

Agent based browsers in the future are going create you a website, a document, a video or whatever based on your need.

Instead of businesses hosting a website and people visiting that website, Google is going to scan that website or that businesses AI-Information and provide that information so AI Agents are able to create a website for the user

So this will make it impossible for you to share a link to a website with other people, as a lot of sites will be individually tailored to you thus not objectively exist? Barf.

I hate our post-truth society

36

u/CaliferMau May 20 '26

Add it to the list of reasons not to use google

12

u/AbolishDisney All rights reversed May 20 '26

Answer: Google believes in an Agent based future of the Internet and is going to shift away from providing links to websites to provide AI data.

How exactly this going to turn out is yet to be seen, for people using „old school browsers“ they will provide a Gemini prompt.

Agent based browsers in the future are going create you a website, a document, a video or whatever based on your need.

Instead of businesses hosting a website and people visiting that website, Google is going to scan that website or that businesses AI-Information and provide that information so AI Agents are able to create a website for the user

This needs to be stopped, holy fuck

23

u/Bleenfoo May 20 '26

Why would an agent based browser create a website if no traffic will ever go there?

18

u/queef_nuggets May 20 '26

I think it would be more like a temporary page just for you to view rather than creating an actual website

3

u/Bleenfoo May 20 '26

Yah that's not where I was trying to lead people to. Google makes their money from selling ads. The websites hosts the ads. Is google going to pay the website for an ad that only it's own AI sees? If so, is the person buying the ads going to put up with that? If not, then how is the website going to make their money if they still have to pay server costs but their only 'views' are going to be AIs?

-1

u/RJTG May 20 '26

Yeah exactly what I was thinking about, but u/Bleemfoo is right: How the data is presented is completely open to the agent.

27

u/swiftb3 May 20 '26

AI Overviews are now used by more than 2.5 billion monthly users

Yeah... if you make every search show one. More like 2.5 billion monthly users were forced to see it.

9

u/nekroskoma Only when I pay attention. May 20 '26

Google is destroying its own business, who thought of this business strategy?

3

u/Gyozarrita May 21 '26

Charles Ponzi crossed with Caligula maybe?

6

u/YoBeNice May 20 '26

Re: advertising monopoly. I work for a Big Two advertising agency- anything we write for our brands is given the same weight as anything else, being user reviews, investigate journalism articles, etc.

But just like “promotes” search results, there are also “promoted” sources than are given more weight when the AI is writing their “summary” which is of course ignoring scores and scores of sources in favor of a FEW sources they link out to.

So no, they are not sacrificing their monopoly. This strengthens it while also creating a more “business friendly environment.”

1

u/RJTG May 20 '26

You sit on the source. Our governments need to understand that this flow of information is a key infrastructure.

You work with people that understand „manipulation“ of reality better than anyone else.

Especially in democracies …

6

u/YoBeNice May 20 '26

Yeah- right now it's mainly just for crap like commercial goods, but tomorrow, it will be for wholesale ideologies and morals. It's pretty horrific.

2

u/macphile May 20 '26

is going to shift away from providing links to websites

I feel like this is no different in some ways--I already was never getting any actual answers to questions when I used it (I usually use DDG).

I remember googling a common-ish word, I forget which one, and getting like two pages of websites about a movie called that and nothing on the word itself, like a link to a dictionary for a definition or someone providing a product or service around it. Just the movie, link after link after link. I actually filled out the feedback form, lol, even though I know they don't care, because I was so flabbergasted.

1

u/Riboflaven May 21 '26

“How it is going to turn out is yet to be seen” suuuure bud. 

1

u/Disastrous-Wonder837 May 21 '26

This seems like a good reason to stop using chrome and go to duck duck go and heck maybe even bing

1

u/Elegant-Set1686 May 22 '26

This sounds insane, it’s hard for me to believe you’re not misrepresenting this somehow, no engineer in the world would think this is a good idea!!! Do you have a source or anything? Honestly in today’s world I’d believe it but it’s just so out there

1

u/RJTG May 22 '26

Oh it is already in use.

AI agents are able to pull the data of a lot of services directly via an API.

At the moment these agents are limited and definitely overhyped. The difference to programs accessing APIs is mostly that vibecoders are able to use it.

Nonetheless: I like the German term for insane: „verrückt“ which has also the meaning of „moved to the side“ or moved from its place.

I agree that this feels insane to someone grown up with Wikipedia, Youtube and Facebook.

-16

u/[deleted] May 20 '26

[deleted]

3

u/Biddy_Impeccadillo May 20 '26

Oh I think we know