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You knew it was coming: Google begins testing AI-only search results | This version of Google won't show you the 10 blue links at all—Gemini completely takes over the results in AI Mode (arstechnica.com)

submitted 16 hours ago by ForgottenFlux to c/technology

93 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Google has become so integral to online navigation that its name became a verb, meaning "to find things on the Internet." Soon, Google might just tell you what's on the Internet instead of showing you. The company has announced an expansion of its AI search features, powered by Gemini 2.0. Everyone will soon see more AI Overviews at the top of the results page, but Google is also testing a more substantial change in the form of AI Mode. This version of Google won't show you the 10 blue links at all—Gemini completely takes over the results in AI Mode.

This marks the debut of Gemini 2.0 in Google search. Google announced the first Gemini 2.0 models in December 2024, beginning with the streamlined Gemini 2.0 Flash. The heavier versions of Gemini 2.0 are still in testing, but Google says it has tuned AI Overviews with this model to offer help with harder questions in the areas of math, coding, and multimodal queries.

With this update, you will begin seeing AI Overviews on more results pages, and minors with Google accounts will see AI results for the first time. In fact, even logged out users will see AI Overviews soon. This is a big change, but it's only the start of Google's plans for AI search.

Gemini 2.0 also powers the new AI Mode for search. It's launching as an opt-in feature via Google's Search Labs, offering a totally new alternative to search as we know it. This custom version of the Gemini large language model (LLM) skips the standard web links that have been part of every Google search thus far.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

Is there any escape from shitty AI slop in my search results?

What search engines are there that I can use that arent a proxy for one of the big ones? And yes I know about Kagi, I’d prefer open source if possible.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

There's a new beta one which only uses its own index: https://stract.com/

And best of all it's written in Rust.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago

There's not really a strong player in the open source search space.

Mwmnl exists, but per their own readme:

The quality is a long way's off from matching the commercial engines at the moment

Kagi provides the source code for many of their services, but is not truly open source, especially because at its core, it relies on applying its own rankings to other's indexes.

That said, search is a space where the old adage rings true:

If you're not paying for it; you are the product!

For what it's worth, I find value in my Kagi subscription.

[–] balder1991 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Maybe something to use only for fun, but check out Marginalia. It’s open source and as far as I know, runs in the guy’s computer at his house. It deprioritizes commercial websites and boosts small blogs instead.

Every time I go there I find something genuinely interesting or cozy to read.

[–] IMALlama 7 points 13 hours ago

Moving from enshitified closed source to a different closed source that's trying to position itself as user first isn't necessarily bad.