Stephen Downes

I remember when Google search was really useful. It was a time when the search engine learned about me and the sort of thing I clicked on, and so it felt almost like a personal search, giving me results tailored to my specific needs. Those days are long gone, of course, the victim of relentless advertising. Now we're getting 'AI native search' and the question is: will it mean really useful search again, or even more relentless advertising. This article, which describes how native AI search will work, equivocates on the question (to be fair, answering it was not the author's intent) but from the feel I get on reading it, the biggest problem we will have with AI native search will be, once again, relentless advertising. "The new goal becomes getting your brand mentioned within the AI's answers, rather than just earning clicks." And the reader will never know whether it was paid placement or genuinely good information.