Google’s annual conference, I/O, has come to a close, and top executives gathered for a global media interview. Attendees included Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, Elizabeth Reid, Vice President and General Manager of Google Search, James Manyika, Senior Vice President of Google Research, Technology, and Society, and Koray Kavukcuoglu, Chief Technology Officer of Google Deepmind. These individuals play crucial roles in leading AI development.
In the face of challenges from strong competitors like OpenAI, Google emphasizes its long-term investments and the influence it has with hundreds of millions of users. Regarding concerns about the impact of AI features introduced by the search engine on website traffic, Google expresses confidence in maintaining balance. “Digital Era” was present on-site to witness Google executives answering various questions.
Regarding competition: How does Google view the relentless pursuit of OpenAI and their slow progress in being “responsible”?
The AI battle between tech giants continues to heat up, with Microsoft’s OpenAI even choosing to announce the multimodal capabilities of GPT-4o on the day before Google’s annual conference, I/O. In response, Pichai stated, “We are pleased to see the innovations from other companies, which benefits everyone. So, like all of you, I am excited. It has been an exciting week in the tech industry.” However, he added that an event happening today in the tech industry may become less important over time. “We have been investing and developing models to change the lives of billions of people in the long run. That is Google’s North Star.” This suggests that Google is not focused on the current competition and instead directs its attention to a larger scale.
The competition between Google and OpenAI has been ongoing since the end of 2022, with both companies frequently announcing new products around the same time. Recently, The New York Times reported that OpenAI’s audiovisual generation model, Sora, has been trained using over 1 million hours of YouTube videos. When Pichai was asked about this controversy during an interview with CNBC on the 14th, he responded simply, “I think that’s a question they need to answer. Typically, when these things happen, we make sure they understand our terms of service, and we’ll address that issue.”
In addition to external challenges, the media also questioned Google’s own competitiveness. They pointed out that Google has placed a significant emphasis on being “responsible” and reducing AI hallucinations from last year to this year. However, in the fiercely competitive AI field, how does Google ensure that it doesn’t fall behind?
“We want to be bold but also make choices,” emphasized Pichai. He stated that being responsible is not just about regulations but also drives innovation. For example, Google is investing in tools that benefit humanity, such as flood forecasts, medical expertise models, and inclusive design. These initiatives go hand in hand with Google’s AI development.
Regarding the search engine: Will AI summaries reduce website traffic?
Google officially launched its AI Overview feature on the search engine this year. It uses AI to search for and summarize content for users at the top of the page. Concerns have been raised about the impact this may have on advertising effectiveness and the traffic of creators and publishers. Research firm Gartner predicts that due to the increasing reliance on AI as a whole, internet traffic on search engines will decrease by 25% by 2026.
Paul Roetzer, CEO of the Marketing AI Institute, believes that this will undoubtedly have a negative impact on websites that rely on organic search traffic. “Marketers have no choice but to continue doing what they are doing and try to attract attention outside of Google search.”
In response to this, Elizabeth Reid emphasized that AI summaries and traffic are not a “zero-sum game.” In fact, they found during their testing process that the websites displayed in AI Overviews experienced an increase in traffic. “People often assume that the number of questions in the world is fixed, but in reality, when people search for a question, they become curious about the answer and continue to explore further.”
Pichai also added that Google had already introduced the “Featured Snippets” feature in 2014, which displays search results prominently at the top of the page. This feature was also questioned at the time but has proven over time that website traffic increased. This indicates their confidence in maintaining this balance.
Regarding goals: Making AI understand the world more like humans
The AI field is ever-changing, and the media at the event asked about future prospects, focusing on what will happen in the next 12 months. In response, Kavukcuoglu believes that the most crucial mission for Google in the next year is to make AI capable of more human-like and complex reasoning. “We are currently in a phase where generative models can create new ideas and make hypotheses, but reasoning through these things is a more challenging task.” Kavukcuoglu pointed out that Google wants people to be able to interact with these models and even have technology act as their “agent,” truly executing tasks. However, all of these things require AI to have a comprehensive understanding of the entire context and the world as seen by users.
From the recently announced smart assistant, Astra, one can glimpse Google’s future direction. When Astra uses a camera to see the same screen as the user and can think and respond in real-time, it feels as if it is experiencing the world together with the user. This is an important step in Google’s development.
Editor: Li Xiantai