At Google, there are few jobs bigger than running searches. As of today, there is a new person in that seat. Liz Reid has been at Google for over 20 years, most recently leading the company’s AI search efforts known as Search Generative Experience (SGE).
Reid’s promotion is part of a larger change within Google’s search team. Pandu Nayak, a longtime rankings and quality executive, will become search chief scientist. He will be replaced by his colleague Cheenu Venkatachary, who is also working on his AI products in the search space. Meanwhile, Cathy Edwards, who led much of the work on Google News and Google Discover, is set to join Google’s long-term betting team.
In some ways, this is just a regular corporate conspiracy. People get new titles, new jobs, and move on after years in a particular role. Prabhakar Raghavan, who has overseen search, advertising, and Assistant for many years, will continue to lead the company.
But anyway, why not read the tea leaves? The easiest way to look at these moves is as evidence that Google believes AI is the future of search. For 25 years, we’ve all typed keywords into a search box and expected a ton of ranked links to come back. In an AI-powered, multi-search-based world, you could instead upload a photo and a Gemini model could tell you what it’s about and how to buy it. Ask a question into your headphones and you might get a fully formed answer from the speaker.
In particular, Reid has spent the past few years working on both AI search and multisearch, which together represent a whole new way of thinking about Google. In his LinkedIn post announcing his new role, Reed mentioned all of these new search tools, including the new Circle to Search feature, Google Lens, and other new ways of thinking about search. “SGE allows us to meet a broader range of information needs and answer new types of questions, including more complex questions such as comparisons and long queries,” she wrote. And more will be coming soon, she said.
AI search and multisearch represent a whole new way of thinking about Google
Ahead of SGE’s launch last year, Reed said he’s been thinking a lot about lowering the bar for asking real questions to Google. For example, let’s say you searched for “What is the best lawn mower?” “If you think about going further, you’ll probably want to take a picture of a lawnmower and say, ‘The best version of this.’ But maybe you’ll take a picture of a lawnmower and say, “Well, your lawn is hilly and it’s very large, so you want something super automatic that will do that for you.” But Google has a lot of other Like businesses, we believe in what AI can do.
Google search will almost certainly become more similar to SGE over time. More and more we will be exchanging links and answers. Reed acknowledges that part of her ongoing challenge is figuring out how to cite those answers and remain a good partner to the open web. Pichai and others have been saying for some time that AI is the future, but they’ve been preaching patience as the company struggles with and tries to improve on all this nascent technology. But with Reid and Venkatachary at the helm of the product, the age of AI at Google appears to be coming sooner than we thought.
