May 20, 2025 • 8 mins
Google hosted its annual developer conference, Google IO, focused on the company's advancements in artificial intelligence, android operating systems, smartwatches and its scam detection tools. From the conference in Mountain View, California Bloomberg News Jackie Davalos spoke with Google's Liz Reid.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. All right, back to
kind of our tech focus this hour, our team around
the globe and across the United States, continuing to report
out on some of the big tech events that are
happening on this Tuesday. Right now, we want to head
to Google Io. It's Google's annual developer conference. It focuses
on the company's advancements in AI, Android operating system, smartwatches,
(00:26):
and it's scam detection tools. And Tim, it's happening right
now in Mountain View, California.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
That's where we find Bloomberg News technology reporter Jack Devallos
with Google's Liz Reach.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
He's vice president and head of Search at the firm.
Hey Jackie, Hey Tim.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
And Carol Liz, it's great to have you today.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
A pleasure to be with you here today.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
The big news that came out of that keynote speech
was really AI Mode. It's what everyone was really hoping
to get an insight into what's next for search, and
you called it the most powerful search and Geniette described
to us why this is a total reimagining of the
search experience.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, I think we've seen with aio reviews that it's
been really great for people, enabling them to ask new
types of questions. But we also saw that people really
wanted to say sometimes they have those hard questions, they
want to go directly to an AI powered response. They
wanted to ask follow up questions because they're trying to
do something in more depth in research, and so we
really thought about what does that experience look like for people,
(01:25):
and how do we bring it in so that they
can ask truly their hardest questions and then continue to
explore and take action throughout the web.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So is this the end of the blue links?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
No, absolutely not. I think both within aiover reviews and
within AI mode, AI is actually allowing us to go
deeper into search. It's allowing people to find that hyper relevant,
incredibly fresh content that really matches your need. If you
think about it, if you are doing more of sort
of a keywordy style, you only gave a few words.
(01:54):
You didn't really describe what the particular type of shoes
you want are. And you saw with the shopping example today, Okay,
if you're really describing this is the type of rug
I want to buy, can you find that great small
merchant that sells the perfect rug for you, and so
I think that will continue to thrive going forward.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
One of the biggest questions is really around search has
really come up around do I use one of these
other chatbots open ai for example, or Meta whatever's out
there these days, to kind of ask it these questions
in the same way that I used to use Google
Search for when it comes to Google's products, why do
you want users? Do you prefer to have users go
(02:33):
through the Gemini app or to search? Kind of what's
the unique benefit of going to search in the case
for more specific and more complex questions. I think search
is really designed around helping you with your information needs.
It's tuned to really think about things like accuracy and factuality. Oftentimes,
when you have these information needs, you want to get started,
(02:54):
but then you want to go deeper and research more.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Let's say you're looking for camps. You want some good
idea for camps, but we actually want to check out
the camp sitans, right, and so search is really designed
to make those questions possible and really focused on doing
the best job possible when you have questions with really
at information focus.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
You mentioned accuracy, and Google had some issues with accuracy
kind of in the more early days of this technology.
How did you know that AI mode was ready for
prime time?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
So we have quite thorough testing that we do constantly.
We have the feedback from the users in the Labs product,
but also put it through extensive testing around the factuality,
around the helpfulness of the product, and really seeing that
both from our benchmarks as well as from the user feedback,
we believe it is ready.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
The agent kind of aspect to artificial intelligence is something
that everyone is really curious about when it comes to search.
What do agents mean in that context? Is it going
to be kind of us feeding information into search or
kind of it doing it for us in the long run.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I think maybe a couple of things to highlight, and
we talked about how we're bringing Project Mariner in today
to search. On those cases. For instance, you're trying to
buy baseball tickets, you would have to go to hundreds
of different sites enter in the same day the same
number of tickets and go look at them, and we
can go off and help pull that information together and
then allow you to take action. But I think this
(04:24):
is an important part of agents is agents should be
taking the drudgery out of the work for you. That's
how we think about in search, but still keeping you
in control. Right, So what's the part of the task
you don't want to do, but then coming back and saying, well,
which of these do you want? Right? I think if
you're trying to pick tickets or you're trying to buy
a great purse, both of those, at the end of
(04:44):
the day, you probably still want to sign off on
that final choice. And so we're really thinking about the
role of both reducing the effort but enabling you the
agency to participate.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I'm hearing a lot about engagement, so users are going
to be using this in a different way, possibly for
law longer and more efficiently. Earlier this year, an Apple
executives said that the number of Google searches in the
Safari browser was starting to take down. Do you expect
that AI mode could actually reverse that trend?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
So, as we stated, overall search queries are up, including
on the Apple platforms. But I think you also heard
from Sender today aioverviews has driven an increase in queries
already today. I think we expect with AI mode that
will happen as well. It's really an expansionary moment. There's
a lot of questions that you might think about in
your head, but you didn't historically think it was worth
(05:34):
the time or effort to go ask them. And as
technology unlocks this, we saw this with aio reviews. People
just come and they asked that question that used to
pop in their head, and they would let go and
do that. And so we really expect the space to
grow over time.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
One of the areas that I know publishers and content
creators are really curious about is kind of what the
longer term impact of aioverviews is on them. Can you
kind of break down how you expect AI mode kind
of largely available to affect that cohort.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
So I would say two things we saw with aioverviews
that pages with aioverviews drive higher quality clicks to websites,
which means people spend more time on them, they're really
engaged on them, So it's a good thing for publishers.
So I think that's a great thing of getting really
high quality content, and we are looking forward to doing
the same thing with AI mode as well. I think
we're going to continue to find deeper parts of the
(06:26):
web that really incredible, hyper relevant content. But I would
also say I still expect the vast majority of people
to interact primarily on the main search experience with aioverviews.
AI mode is really for those harder tasks. It's for
the subset of people that really want to be on
that sort of cutting edge frontier of models. But AIO
reviews and the main search page continues to be a
(06:48):
great place for a lot of your questions. When it
comes to antitrust, it's on our viewer's minds. We're Bloomberg
and we're really focused on what those implications could be
on the broader business model. Judge last year ruled that
Google's dominance in search was an illegal monopoly, and of
course the outcome of that is still really yet to
(07:08):
be seen. But for you in your shoes as head
of search, how are you thinking about the effect that
could have.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
On your roadmap?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
So in general, we stay just focused on building the
best thing for our users. People continue to choose Google
because they find it helpful, not because they have to,
and that is really our north star and has been
for years. You go back to that mission of organizing
all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
We're a long ways away from the end of that right, Yes,
(07:38):
we've come a long way in the last twenty five years,
but there's still so many opportunities to make information more useful.
We talk today about how we think the future of
search is going beyond information to intelligence, really helping you
in a deep way with your needs, and that's that's
what gets us motivated every day.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
So you don't see the outcome of that antitrust trial
kind of affecting your strategy in search going forward or
slowing it down in any way.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
So we don't generally comment on pending legislation, but I
think in general we'll continue to try and build amazing
products for users that people love, just as we have
over the last twenty five years.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Liz Rae, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Thank you for joining having me Carol
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. All right, back to
kind of our tech focus this hour, our team around
the globe and across the United States, continuing to report
out on some of the big tech events that are
happening on this Tuesday. Right now, we want to head
to Google Io. It's Google's annual developer conference. It focuses
on the company's advancements in AI, Android operating system, smartwatches,
(00:26):
and it's scam detection tools. And Tim, it's happening right
now in Mountain View, California.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
That's where we find Bloomberg News technology reporter Jack Devallos
with Google's Liz Reach.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
He's vice president and head of Search at the firm.
Hey Jackie, Hey Tim.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
And Carol Liz, it's great to have you today.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
A pleasure to be with you here today.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
The big news that came out of that keynote speech
was really AI Mode. It's what everyone was really hoping
to get an insight into what's next for search, and
you called it the most powerful search and Geniette described
to us why this is a total reimagining of the
search experience.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, I think we've seen with aio reviews that it's
been really great for people, enabling them to ask new
types of questions. But we also saw that people really
wanted to say sometimes they have those hard questions, they
want to go directly to an AI powered response. They
wanted to ask follow up questions because they're trying to
do something in more depth in research, and so we
really thought about what does that experience look like for people,
(01:25):
and how do we bring it in so that they
can ask truly their hardest questions and then continue to
explore and take action throughout the web.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So is this the end of the blue links?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
No, absolutely not. I think both within aiover reviews and
within AI mode, AI is actually allowing us to go
deeper into search. It's allowing people to find that hyper relevant,
incredibly fresh content that really matches your need. If you
think about it, if you are doing more of sort
of a keywordy style, you only gave a few words.
(01:54):
You didn't really describe what the particular type of shoes
you want are. And you saw with the shopping example today, Okay,
if you're really describing this is the type of rug
I want to buy, can you find that great small
merchant that sells the perfect rug for you, and so
I think that will continue to thrive going forward.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
One of the biggest questions is really around search has
really come up around do I use one of these
other chatbots open ai for example, or Meta whatever's out
there these days, to kind of ask it these questions
in the same way that I used to use Google
Search for when it comes to Google's products, why do
you want users? Do you prefer to have users go
(02:33):
through the Gemini app or to search? Kind of what's
the unique benefit of going to search in the case
for more specific and more complex questions. I think search
is really designed around helping you with your information needs.
It's tuned to really think about things like accuracy and factuality. Oftentimes,
when you have these information needs, you want to get started,
(02:54):
but then you want to go deeper and research more.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Let's say you're looking for camps. You want some good
idea for camps, but we actually want to check out
the camp sitans, right, and so search is really designed
to make those questions possible and really focused on doing
the best job possible when you have questions with really
at information focus.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
You mentioned accuracy, and Google had some issues with accuracy
kind of in the more early days of this technology.
How did you know that AI mode was ready for
prime time?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
So we have quite thorough testing that we do constantly.
We have the feedback from the users in the Labs product,
but also put it through extensive testing around the factuality,
around the helpfulness of the product, and really seeing that
both from our benchmarks as well as from the user feedback,
we believe it is ready.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
The agent kind of aspect to artificial intelligence is something
that everyone is really curious about when it comes to search.
What do agents mean in that context? Is it going
to be kind of us feeding information into search or
kind of it doing it for us in the long run.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I think maybe a couple of things to highlight, and
we talked about how we're bringing Project Mariner in today
to search. On those cases. For instance, you're trying to
buy baseball tickets, you would have to go to hundreds
of different sites enter in the same day the same
number of tickets and go look at them, and we
can go off and help pull that information together and
then allow you to take action. But I think this
(04:24):
is an important part of agents is agents should be
taking the drudgery out of the work for you. That's
how we think about in search, but still keeping you
in control. Right, So what's the part of the task
you don't want to do, but then coming back and saying, well,
which of these do you want? Right? I think if
you're trying to pick tickets or you're trying to buy
a great purse, both of those, at the end of
(04:44):
the day, you probably still want to sign off on
that final choice. And so we're really thinking about the
role of both reducing the effort but enabling you the
agency to participate.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I'm hearing a lot about engagement, so users are going
to be using this in a different way, possibly for
law longer and more efficiently. Earlier this year, an Apple
executives said that the number of Google searches in the
Safari browser was starting to take down. Do you expect
that AI mode could actually reverse that trend?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
So, as we stated, overall search queries are up, including
on the Apple platforms. But I think you also heard
from Sender today aioverviews has driven an increase in queries
already today. I think we expect with AI mode that
will happen as well. It's really an expansionary moment. There's
a lot of questions that you might think about in
your head, but you didn't historically think it was worth
(05:34):
the time or effort to go ask them. And as
technology unlocks this, we saw this with aio reviews. People
just come and they asked that question that used to
pop in their head, and they would let go and
do that. And so we really expect the space to
grow over time.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
One of the areas that I know publishers and content
creators are really curious about is kind of what the
longer term impact of aioverviews is on them. Can you
kind of break down how you expect AI mode kind
of largely available to affect that cohort.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
So I would say two things we saw with aioverviews
that pages with aioverviews drive higher quality clicks to websites,
which means people spend more time on them, they're really
engaged on them, So it's a good thing for publishers.
So I think that's a great thing of getting really
high quality content, and we are looking forward to doing
the same thing with AI mode as well. I think
we're going to continue to find deeper parts of the
(06:26):
web that really incredible, hyper relevant content. But I would
also say I still expect the vast majority of people
to interact primarily on the main search experience with aioverviews.
AI mode is really for those harder tasks. It's for
the subset of people that really want to be on
that sort of cutting edge frontier of models. But AIO
reviews and the main search page continues to be a
(06:48):
great place for a lot of your questions. When it
comes to antitrust, it's on our viewer's minds. We're Bloomberg
and we're really focused on what those implications could be
on the broader business model. Judge last year ruled that
Google's dominance in search was an illegal monopoly, and of
course the outcome of that is still really yet to
(07:08):
be seen. But for you in your shoes as head
of search, how are you thinking about the effect that
could have.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
On your roadmap?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
So in general, we stay just focused on building the
best thing for our users. People continue to choose Google
because they find it helpful, not because they have to,
and that is really our north star and has been
for years. You go back to that mission of organizing
all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
We're a long ways away from the end of that right, Yes,
(07:38):
we've come a long way in the last twenty five years,
but there's still so many opportunities to make information more useful.
We talk today about how we think the future of
search is going beyond information to intelligence, really helping you
in a deep way with your needs, and that's that's
what gets us motivated every day.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
So you don't see the outcome of that antitrust trial
kind of affecting your strategy in search going forward or
slowing it down in any way.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
So we don't generally comment on pending legislation, but I
think in general we'll continue to try and build amazing
products for users that people love, just as we have
over the last twenty five years.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Liz Rae, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Thank you for joining having me Carol
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