Google Search In 5 Years

John Ebbert

Not invited to investment banking firm LUMA’s DMS event today? AI and its impact on marketing are top of mind.

Here’s the agenda.

Also –

Google search advertising revenue is a tantalizing opportunity to the makers of large language models targeting the consumer and his/her search behavior. Today, it’s mostly subscriptions for LLM chatbot front-ends. Tomorrow… ads!

Yet, according to Google’s own AI entrant, Gemini, Google’s search dominance isn’t going anywhere.

Biased? View Gemini’s argument – it’s not nothin’.

prompt – Google Search in 5 years

Will Google search exist in 5 years?

Response from Google’s Gemini:

Yes, it is highly probable that Google Search will exist in 5 years. In fact, with the rapid advancements in Artificial Intelligence, Google Search is not just expected to exist but is also undergoing a significant transformation to become even more integrated into our daily lives and provide more intuitive and comprehensive search experiences.

Here’s a breakdown of why Google Search is likely to not only exist but also evolve significantly in the next 5 years:

Ongoing Dominance and Adaptation:

  • Market Share: As of early 2025, Google continues to hold a dominant share of the search engine market. While other search engines and AI-powered tools are emerging, shifting user behavior on a large scale takes time.

  • Continuous Innovation: Google has been actively integrating AI into its search capabilities for years through technologies like RankBrain and BERT. The recent introduction of “AI Mode” in Google Labs, powered by the Gemini 2.0 model, signals a significant step towards a future where AI-generated summaries and conversational interactions become a core part of the search experience.

  • Integration with Other Services: Google Search is deeply integrated with a vast ecosystem of other Google services like Maps, YouTube, Gmail, and more. This interconnectedness strengthens its utility and user reliance.

The Evolution of Search with AI:

  • AI Overviews: Google’s AI Overviews, formerly known as the Search Generative Experience (SGE), are becoming increasingly common. These provide AI-generated summaries and direct answers at the top of search results, aiming for a quicker and more efficient search process.

  • Conversational Search: The “AI Mode” experiment indicates a move towards more conversational search experiences, where users can ask follow-up questions and receive more detailed, AI-powered responses, similar to interacting with a chatbot but with the vast knowledge of Google’s search index.

  • Multimodal Search: Google has already introduced features like “Circle to Search” and the ability to search with both images and text simultaneously. AI will further enhance these capabilities, allowing for more natural and intuitive ways to find information.

  • Personalization: AI algorithms will continue to refine search results based on individual search history, preferences, location, and real-time behavior, leading to more personalized and relevant outcomes.

Challenges and Opportunities:

  • Impact on Website Traffic: The rise of AI Overviews, which provide answers directly on the search page, could potentially lead to a decrease in traffic to traditional websites. Businesses and content creators will need to adapt their strategies to ensure their information is surfaced by these AI summaries.

  • Accuracy and Bias: Ensuring the accuracy and avoiding bias in AI-generated search results will be a critical challenge for Google as these features become more prominent.

  • Monetization: Google will need to evolve its advertising model to effectively integrate with AI-powered search experiences. They are experimenting with both ad-supported and subscription-based models for AI features.

In conclusion, while the way we interact with Google Search will likely evolve significantly in the next 5 years due to the increasing integration of AI, it is almost certain that Google Search, in some form, will not only exist but will remain a central tool for accessing information online. It will likely become more intelligent, conversational, and personalized, aiming to “do the Googling for you” in a more comprehensive and efficient manner.

Google’s Gemini did not offer sources for these insights.

Gartner to CMOs

“The future of marketing hinges on harnessing autonomous AI to not only enhance efficiency but also drive enterprise growth.” – Nicole Greene, VP Analyst, Gartner Marketing Practice

  • From Productivity to Impact: Unlocking the True Potential of AI in Marketing (May 13) – Gartner

  • AI Will Replace Marketing Jobs As CMO Budgets Stagnate, Says Gartner (May 12) – AdExchanger

AI ads for ecommerce

A new startup co-founded by a member of Jim Payne’s MoPub “mafia” publicly launched yesterday.

Co-founder and CEO Kevin Weatherman announced Upscale AI on Linkedin yesterday and said that his new company will be targeting ecommerce brands with its Upscale Studio. Inevitably, one could see agencies using this type of product on behalf of their brand clients, too.

Weatherman, who helped guide publisher sales at MoPub long ago, said on LinkedIn that the Studio is “the first AI-native platform to create, run, and optimize performance TV ads on Streaming and YouTube.” Former Krux VP of Technology Seth Yates is the other co-founder.

Visit upscale.ai

Investors include former MoPub CEO Payne as well as nvp capital, Microsoft’s Venture Fund Eniac Ventures, Breakpoint Capital and others.

Mo’ context: MoPub and its mobile ad exchange sold to Twitter in 2013 for $350 million. In 2021, AppLovin bought Twitter’s version of MoPub for $1 billion in cash.

the ‘doomer’ narrative

Last week, former Unilever marketer Babs Rangaiah reposted on LinkedIn a purported internal email on AI by Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufmann. Kaufmann admonishes his employees to beware of the catastrophic change coming in “months” due to AI. He writes, “So here is the unpleasant truth: AI is coming for your jobs…” Read more.

Some observations:

  • Criticism in the LinkedIn post’s comments included only a modest helping of techno-optimism.

  • Doomer-ism will only increase from here -if for no other reason than media will find this a rich, “scary” topic and, therefore, amplify it.

  • Fiverr may experience serious turnover. Perhaps, that was the plan.

landscape wars

Have you made your own AI for ads/marketing landscape, yet? You might as well join the crowd.

Let’s review…

  • First, LiveRamp corp dev leader Jimmy Ren published this landscape of AI advertising companies a week ago here.

  • Then, Joseph Hirsch of Swivel came up with an encyclopedia here.

  • Unsatisfied with the treatment of AI agents in the landscape discussion, former AppNexus CEO and current Scope3 CEO Brian O’Kelley came up with “The AI Agent Revolution Reshaping Advertising’s Ecosystem” using Claude. Read that one on LinkedIn.

  • Over the weekend, Marketecture’s AdTechGod hinted (here) at new ad tech, AI landscapes on the way.

Will the O.G. – Luma Partners investment banker Terence Kawaja – finally release his version of an AI ads landscape?

AI agency trading desk

Former Havas agency trading desk tech leader Nate Woodman released his flow chart today for the evolution of the “media agency tech stack.”

The “AI Context Plane and “Automated Cross Ad Platform Agentic Activation” make the visual – read more context from Nate here.

more news

  • Forget SEO. The hot new thing is ‘AEO.’ (Answer Engine Optimization) Here are the startups chasing this AI marketing phenomenon. (May 12) – Business Insider
  • Amazon Hopes AI Gives ‘Pause Ads’ New Momentum (May 12) – Variety
  • Federal Circuit Clarifies Requirements for Patenting AI Technology (May 8) – Pryor Cashman law firm
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