Google’s notoriously wonky AI Overviews feature — you know, the one that repeatedly makes up facts and literally tells users to eat rocks — is about to get a whole lot more annoying.
On Thursday, the tech giant announced that its AI-generated search summaries will now begin to show ads above, below, and within them, as a way of demonstrating that the technology is capable of actually making money.
It will also serve to assuage concerns that AI chatbots could eat into search ad revenues, which are Google’s biggest cash cow.
Now, if you search how to get a grass stain out of jeans, as seen in an example in Google’s blog post, you’ll get an AI summary which contains a carousel of relevant website links, plus a heavy helping of “Sponsored” ads for stain removers. Revolutionary stuff.
“This other company is lying about how good their product is and everyone is buying their bullshit. We can’t miss the bandwagon!”
It would be hilarious if Pichai actually sent an email like this (or even more aggressive and truthful).