Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, said in an interview that Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information, not provide blue links. Schmidt’s pragmatic statements seem to describe a future where websites are unnecessary and advertising is increasingly effective.
Are answers without links a good user experience?
The former CEO’s prediction of Google’s future may seem to contradict the statements of Google’s current CEO that search and the web will continue to co-exist, as well as Danny Sullivan, who has said many times that a web ecosystem healthy is important to Google. .
There are many actions taken by Google in the past that indicate that Eric Schmidt’s prediction fits perfectly with how Google has ranked sites in the past.
The early days of the web were navigated not only by search engines, but also by curated web directories that served as starting places for internet users to go in search of information, jumping from link to link on a hyper-linked internet . The idea was that hyperlinks were how users could find information.
Not only did Google Search rank web pages in web directories, but Google itself hosted a version of DMOZ, an open source web directory that was curated by thousands of volunteers, just as Wikipedia maintains volunteer editors .
But there came a day when Google stopped ranking directories and the reason given was that it was a better user experience to show answers and not links to pages with more links (this event is probably archived somewhere in the WebmasterWorld forum, it happened a long time ago) .
Then there are Google’s answers for flight tracking, package tracking, stock quotes, time and weather information that has no links.
Example of a response without links
Eric Schmidt’s claim that Google will leverage AI to display answers fits Google’s design principle that showing answers is a good user experience if it fully satisfies the query.
The only difference between the old days and now is that Google’s AI has (mostly) unlocked the ability to show answers without linking to any websites.
So it’s not far-fetched that Google might decide that showing the answers is a good user experience, there’s priority for that approach.
AI is underrated
Schmidt raised the idea that AI is not overhyped, but in fact underrated.
He observed:
“I hate to tell you, but I think these things are not exaggerated. Because the arrival of intelligence in a non-human form is really a big problem for the world.
It’s coming Is here. It’s about to happen. It goes through stages. … the reason I say it’s underrated is that you’re seeing the future of reasoning, the future of human interaction, the future of research, the future of planning being invented right now.
There’s something called infinite context windows, which means you can, it’s like having infinite short-term memory, which I sure don’t have, where you can basically keep feeding it information and it keeps learning and changing.
Eric Schmidt on the future of research
The interviewer asked Schmidt about a future where AI answers questions without links to sources on the web.
The interviewer asked this question:
“In a world where AI provides the answer and doesn’t necessarily have to send you to 12 places to find it yourself… what’s up with all that?
Eric Schmidt replied:
“It is quite important to understand that Google is not about blue links, but about organizing the world’s information. What better tool than the advent of AI to do better.
Think you can monetize it? You’re betting.”
Will answers without links go through?
It must be reiterated that Eric Schmidt (LinkedIn profile) is no longer Google’s CEO or Alphabet’s executive chairman and technical advisor (for four years). Your views may not reflect the current thinking of Google.
However, it’s not unreasonable to speculate that he might be saying things out loud that the Googlers can’t officially discuss.
The strongest information we have now is that Google Search will continue to have links, but that Google (and others like Apple) are moving forward with AI assistants on mobile devices that can answer questions and perform tasks.
