this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025

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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 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Ok, but why should I go to Google for ai answers when I can get the same from openai, other models or even local installations without all the ads?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I hate this.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

DuckDuckGo is pretty easy to switch to. You can go to settings and disable AI chat in it.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month 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] 7 points 1 month ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I mean their search results have gone to absolute shit anyway, the AI is probably better at this point.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Absolute shit results run through an AI gives you even worse absolute shit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

doubt

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

My coworker who has an absolute hard-on for ChatGPT has tried several times in vain to get it to say the correct answer to a question I knew the answer to. LLMs are bullshit engines and toys for the malicious.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I noticed today that UDM mode for Google is displaying sponsored results now, too...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

yeah udm14 getting pretty bad lately. That is why I moved to startpage which is same Google services without AI and sponsored contents

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Yup, this was all the motivation I needed to jump ship from Google, fuck those clowns.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Embrace, extend, extinguish, but now it’s Google doing it to the World Wide Web.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (3 children)

...hmm that's kind of shitty and it uses ten times more energy! Let's go full enshitification!

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Of all the sources of truth, why pick auto-complete?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

https://www.startpage.com/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I noticed Edge would only show me corporate/authority friendly results recently as well oddly cutting down the number of results I see to a very unnaturally short amount of results.

Deleting it and moving to DuckDuckGo which while the corporate friendly things were still at the top, it at least showed me some opposition results.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Do people still use google? I haven't touched it for yonks now. Except GRIS, that still works well.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (12 children)

Kagi. But you free loaders would have to pay for something.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Which is EXACTLY why I just moved to using Vivaldi browser and StartPage as a search engine. Fuck these guys.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I didn't expect this. You mean it doesn't have ads? All I tend to get for hits on Google are paid search results anyway. Surely they'll soon bring some ad links into these results.

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