Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Google’s AI search box, app-building tools, and agent products will eventually converge.
Pichai also rejected publisher fears that Google will stop sending traffic to the web in an interview with Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge.
- “Through it all, we are very committed to both meeting user expectations and also connecting them to what’s out on the web,” Pichai said.
However, Pichai’s comments showed why those fears are growing: Google is moving Search toward conversations, agents, and AI tools that can answer questions or complete tasks for users without requiring a click.
Why we care. Many people worried AI Mode would become the default Search experience at I/O. It didn’t, and many people were relieved. AI Mode still isn’t the default Search experience, but Pichai outlined a future where Search, Gemini, and agents merge into a single AI layer for finding information, creating content, and completing tasks.
Agents are the future. AI agents are the next major change for Search and the web, Pichai said:
- “I look at agents, and that is the next evolution of the web. I think it will evolve the web pretty profoundly.”
Google is building agentic tools across Search, Gemini, Spark, and Antigravity. Pichai said those products should eventually come together for users. Pichai has previously said that he sees Google Search evolving into an ‘agent manager’.
One product. Asked whether Google’s AI search box, app-building tools and agent products should become one product, Pichai said: “It will.”
Pichai said agents should work in the background when users plan trips, build things or complete tasks. Pichai said Google is still building the pieces needed for that shift.
- “We are laying a lot of the primitives of what we need for agents to work end to end, and more importantly, for AI to work,” he said.
Dig deeper. Google’s Liz Reid: Search and Gemini may converge, or diverge further
Google rejects Google Zero. Patel asked Pichai about Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch’s recent comment that the publisher was planning as if search traffic would fall to zero.
- “That is Google Zero” Patel said. “Condé Nast is saying, ‘We’re assuming that search will go to zero.’ How would you respond to that?”
The information market has changed far beyond Google, Pichai said:
- “The information ecosystem is so much broader beyond Google, by far. We see it in the data, you see it everywhere,” Pichai said.
Pichai said publishers have spent years adjusting to new formats, platforms, and user habits.
- “It’s exceptionally dynamic, and so it makes sense to me every publisher is adapting to this new world.”
Google says some clicks are going away. Patel pressed Pichai on whether publishers should plan for a future where search traffic falls to zero, citing Lynch’s comment that his teams were told to “assume there is no search.”
Pichai declined to tell publishers how to run their businesses.
- “I’m not in a position to tell such an iconic publisher what they should think about their business or plan,” Pichai said. “If they are building content that is high-quality and people like it, I expect us to reflect that in our products. That much I can commit to them.”
He also said Search is already filtering out some visits.
- “As the technology improves, low-quality clicks get filtered out,” he said. “That’s a natural evolution we see. We see it in our metrics. Bounce clicks are going down.”
Google points to subscriptions. Subscriptions are one way Google is adapting to publisher business models, Pichai said.
- “One of the small features we have done, but very important I think, is if you’ve subscribed to something, we reflect that as a preferred source for you as a user.”
- “We are adapting to the fact that publishers are increasingly turning to subscription offerings, too.”
The interview didn’t address why many publishers moved harder into subscriptions: Because they could no longer rely on search traffic the way they once did.
Search had to move faster. Pichai said Google reorganized Search because the product needed to move faster in the AI era.
- “Search needed to move faster, and Search was split across many leaders,” he said.
Google put Search under Elizabeth Reid, with Nick Fox leading the broader area. Josh Woodward also helped lead Labs and later Gemini work. The goal was to make Google “set up well for this moment where we need to move faster as a company, which means we need to make faster decisions,” Pichai said.
The interview. Sundar Pichai on AI, the future of search, and what’s happening to the web