le CEO on SGE, Search Evolution: “We’ll Get it Right” //

Search Generative Experience is the big question of the moment. Will it destroy Google’s Search Business Model? Google CEO Sundar Pichai says he’s “confident” this won’t be the case based on early testing.

In a Wired Q&A, Pichai said: “We want to ensure that users can connect with the content on the internet. We are doing everything we can to ensure this continues to work.”

Why we care. Google may be confident in the SGE experiment, but it’s hard for us to trust Google right now. We won’t get any data about how AI-driven answers drive clicks to websites or click-through rates, or advertising performance on what we call Chat Engine Results Pages. We have no way of tracking this in Google Search Console or Google Ads.

Ads and organic. Levy reminded Pichai of the differences between AI-generated responses and a list links. This could lead to confusion over whether an SGE response is sponsored or not.

• “Even if you were to have a generative interaction, we would provide a list of sites that supported what we said. We want users to consume these sites. I don’t believe the core experience will be changed. Pichai stated that we will be able to display ads in a manner that is both user-friendly and relevant, especially for commercial queries.

Information is important to people. Pichai said that although the way Google displays information has changed a lot in 25 years, people still search for information.

• “We’re still working to help people find online the best information available. Ads are very valuable as they link merchants, both large and small, with users. All of this remains the same, even though we have applied AI in a deep way. “When we develop search with generative AI we’ll use the same principles”, Pichai said.

Desktop to mobile: Pichai noted that similar questions were asked as Google began to shift its focus away from desktops and towards mobile-first.

• Our early testing has shown that we will be able get it right. The company’s mission is to continue to improve search by applying the fundamental principles. “I am confident that we will be able get it right during this transition,” Pichai stated.

Search community also worried that Google featured snippets would steal traffic. had no links when Bard was launched in February. After months of pressure from search marketers and publishers, SGE finally added links to website on August 30.

Bing Burn. Did Bing’s new ChatGPT powered Bing make Google “dance”? Pichai basically dissed them, comparing their efforts to Alexa and Siri. Pichai claimed that:

• Around the end of last, I thought about how we can bring generative AI into search in a manner that makes sense to our users. This is what I am thinking about and what will be important in the future.”

Could the time of late 2022 coincidentally be when OpenAI launches ChatGPT at the end of November? The explosion of Generative AI on the scene allegedly triggered a Code Red within Google and led to the return Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google.

Pichai also was asked about the antitrust case, but said little beyond using the word “innovation.”

The full interview can be read here: Sundar Pichai on Google AI, Microsoft AI, OpenAI and… Did we Mention AI?

The original Search Engine land article Google’s CEO on SGE, Search Evolution and ‘We’ll Get it Right’ first appeared on Search Engine.