Inc. Magazine
Google’s AI-heavy search revamp is pushing some users to try alternatives like DuckDuckGo. The frustration comes from feeling forced into answers they did not ask for.
Google’s AI-First Overhaul Annoys Users So Much They Are Actually Switching Search Engines
Author: Minda Zetlin
Google announced its new AI-forward search at last week’s I/O developers conference. While some users think it’s great, many aren’t so sure. Google will provide users with narrative answers and invite them to ask follow-up questions. Search will now have an expanding search box, providing an interactive experience. Links to results will be farther down the page. The company expects most users will rely on Google’s AI to answer to their questions rather than checking primary sources.
But as we all know, AI can gets things wrong. When asked how to keep cheese from sliding off pizza, it suggested glue, a response that immediately went viral. (At least it recommended non-toxic glue.) And, even without an actual hallucination, sometimes AI search responses aren’t quite what you wanted. For instance, when people tried searching the term “disregard.”
The result is that some users want less AI, or at least more control, in their search results. And they’re voting with their keystrokes by trying out search engines that aren’t Google. For decades, Google has dominated search. It still gets about 90 percent of search traffic worldwide, and 85 percent in the United States. But after the company announced even more AI-centric search results, one competitor, DuckDuckGo, saw a sharp uptick in usage. The company told Business Insider that US installs of its app were up 20 percent overall in the week after Google’s announcement, and up 33 percent for iOS users. And visits to its noai.duckduckgo.com page, where AI is disabled by default, were up more than 20 percent.
“Force-feeding AI.”
“Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out,” DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg said in a statement to Business Insider. “We want to be the place that puts users in charge and allows them to decide how much or how little AI they want.”
It’s not 100 percent true that Google users have no way out of AI in search. As a Google representative pointed out to TechCrunch, if you don’t want AI search results, you can filter them out. To do that, go over to More at the top of the page, click the drop-down menu, and select Web. That’s in the browser version of search. In the mobile version, you may find Web in the options at the top of search results, though you might have to scroll sideways to find it.
Even though I use Google search all day every day, I didn’t know that I could opt out of AI this way. Now that I know, it’ll come in handy when Google’s AI gives me results for what it thinks I should be looking for instead of what I actually am looking for. However, if I wanted AI-free search all or most of the time, I’d find those opt-out steps cumbersome. And I wonder why Google hasn’t made them easier to find.
Why won’t you let AI answer your emails?
The truth is, it does feel like Google is force-feeding AI, at least to me. It’s not the only company doing this, but it’s definitely one of the most aggressive. For example, it kept writing suggested replies to emails I received, and I would have to delete those replies before writing whatever I actually wanted to say. After I figured out how to disable this aggravating feature, a survey from Google popped up asking me why I hadn’t accepted its proposed email responses. “I’m sorry, but are you kidding?” I wrote back. “AI is powerful, but it can’t read my thoughts.”
To me, AI feels like a cool new friend who’s smart and funny and whom you look forward to getting to know. Then that friend starts texting you ten times a day and showing up at your home uninvited. Suddenly, you’re not so sure you want this person in your life after all. Google seems to be pushing users into a relationship with this friend. And it may have just opened the door for its competitors in search to gain just a little more market share.
Credits: TCA, LLC.