The New York Times reported yesterday that Google is working on an “all-new search engine” while also working on Project Magi, aimed to add AI-based features to the existing search engine.

In fact, according to this report, Google is working on these two projects and several other AI-based search projects to be incorporated into Google Maps, Chrome, Android, and other platforms. I did summarize this yesterday on Search Engine Land but I felt it was important to summarize it here as well, I’ll keep it shorter here.

All-New Google Search To Bring Back Personalization

“Google is racing to build an all-new search engine powered by the technology. It is also upgrading the existing one with A.I. features, according to internal documents reviewed by The Times,” the report wrote. There will be a “far more personalized experience than the company’s current service, attempting to anticipate users’ needs.” “Modernizing its search engine has become an obsession at Google, and the planned changes could put new A.I. technology in phones and homes all over the world,” the Times added.

When is this coming? It is too soon to know. There is no timeline or ETA for when we might hear about this from Google or see this being tested.

Lara Levin, a Google spokeswoman, said, “We’ve been bringing AI to Google Search for years to not only dramatically improve the quality of our results, but also introduce entirely new ways to search, such as Lens and multisearch. We’ve done so in a responsible and helpful way that maintains the high bar we set for delivering quality information. Not every brainstorm deck or product idea leads to a launch, but as we’ve said before, we’re excited about bringing new AI-powered features to Search, and will share more details soon.”

Google has been talking about a vastly different Google Search for a couple of weeks now, so this should not shock too many of you. Also, Google wrote in late March with the Bard release, “We’ll also be thoughtfully integrating LLMs into Search in a deeper way – more to come.”

As I noted on Search Engine Land, Google did the personalization thing in Google Search in a big way in 2009. But then scaled back on that, maybe due to privacy reason, but Google said it was being personalization added little benefit to overall search quality and relevancy. So much so, Google very lightly uses personalization in Google Search these days outside of previous query and location of the searcher.

Project Magi Coming Soon

While waiting for the all-new Google search, Google is expected to release features that help searchers transact with the search results. This is under the project name Magi and we may see signs of Google testing this in the wild as early as next month.

Search features under Google Magi would allow searchers to complete transactions, such as buying shoes or booking flights. Google Search would allow searchers to complete financial transactions, as explained before, while still incorporating the existing search ads that you see in Google Search today.

These changes can allow searchers to answer questions around “software coding and write code based on a user’s request.” “Google may place an ad under the computer code answers, according to a document,” the report added.

Other features Googlers are working on include:

• Google Earth’s mapping technology with help from A.I. and search for music through a conversation with a chatbot.
• GIFI would use A.I. to generate images in Google Image results.
• Tivoli Tutor, would teach users a new language through open-ended A.I. text conversations.
• Searchalong, would let users ask a chatbot questions while surfing the web through Google’s Chrome browser.

Is SEO Dead?

I think SEO is fine for the time being, but things will eventually change:

Making a technically good, easily findable, well-targeted, high-quality website will continue to be critical for those who want to be recommended on the web. Yes, things will change, they always do, but the need for smart, experienced, and curious SEOs is imo not going away.

— johnmu is AI-bait 🏄🏼‍♀️ 🏄🏼 🏄🏼‍♂️ (@JohnMu) April 16, 2023

Also, I recommend checking out the 60 minutes interview from the other day over here.

Forum discussion at Twitter.