AI hasn’t replaced traditional search – it’s expanding it, according to Robby Stein, Google’s VP of Product for Search, speaking in a new interview on Lenny’s Podcast.
Google is seeing more searches than ever as people ask harder, more conversational, and more visual questions powered by AI, Stein said:
“People come to search for just ridiculously wide set of things. … They want specific phone number. They want a price for something. They want to get directions. They want to find a payment web page for their taxes. Like every possible thing you can imagine.
“I think the vastness of that is underappreciated by many people. And what we see is that … AI hasn’t really changed those foundational needs in many ways. What we’re finding is that AI is expansionary.
“There’s actually just more and more questions being asked and curiosity that can be fulfilled now with AI. That’s where you get the growth. The core Google search isn’t really changing in my opinion, we’re not seeing that. But you’re getting this expansion moment.”
Stein pointed to Google Lens as proof: a 70 percent year-over-year surge in visual searches. “Billions and billions and billions of searching this way,” he said.
AI Mode and the future of search. Stein essentially called AI Mode a new layer of Search that gives searchers a “consistent, simple product experience,” where they don’t have to think about where they are asking a question:
“[AI Mode] creates an end-to-end frontier search experience on state-of-the-art models to really truly let you ask anything of Google Search. You can go back and forth. You can have a conversation. And it taps into and is specially designed for search.
“It’s able to understand all of this incredibly rich information that’s within Google. So there’s 50 billion products in the Google Shopping Graph, for instance. They’re updated 2 billion times an hour by merchants with live prices. You have 250 million places and maps. You have all of the finance information. Not to mention you have the entire context of the web and how to connect to it so that you can get context but then go deeper.
“And you kind of like put all of that into this brain that is effectively this way to talk to Google and get at this knowledge. That’s really what you can do now. You can ask anything on your mind and it’ll use all of this information to hopefully give you super high-quality and informed information, as best as we can.
“It’s also been integrated into our core experiences. You can get to it really easily. You can ask follow-up questions of AI Overviews right into AI Mode now. Same for the Lens stuff – take a picture takes you to AI Mode, you can ask follow-up questions and go there too. So it’s increasingly an integrated experience into the core part of the product.”
GEO and content advice. Stein was asked about the rise of AEO (answer engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization) and what it means. The rules of showing up in AI answers haven’t changed as much as people think, Stein said, noting that Google’s AI still searches – just a lot faster and smarter.
“When our AI constructs a response, [it] does something called query fan-out, where the model uses Google search as a tool to do other querying. So, maybe you’re asking about specific shoes. It’ll add and append all these other queries, like maybe dozens of queries, and start searching in the background. And it’ll make requests to our data back end, so if it needs real-time information, it’ll go do that.
“And so, actually something’s searching. It’s not a person. But there’s searches happening. And then each search is paired with content.
Stein referenced Google’s quality rater guidelines and seemed to indicate that SEO best practices still apply in the evolving era of GEO/AEO:
“Do you satisfy the user intent of what they’re trying to get? Do you have sources? Do you cite your information? Is it original, or is it repeating things that have been repeated 500 times? And there’s these best practices that I think still do largely apply because it’s going to ultimately come down to an AI is doing research and finding information.
“And a lot of the core signals – is this a good piece of information for the question? – they’re still valid. They’re still extremely valid and extremely useful. And that will produce a response where you’re more likely to show up in those experiences.”
Stein’s advice for publishers and creators:
“Think about what people are using AI for. I mentioned this is an expansionary moment, right? Like seems to be that people are asking a lot more questions now, particularly around things like advice or how to or more complex needs versus more simple things. If I were a creator, I would be thinking, what kind of content is someone using AI for? And then how could my content be the best for that given set of needs now? And I think that’s a really tangible way of thinking about it.”
How Google AI search differs from competitors. AI Mode isn’t a chatbot – it’s designed and specially created for informational needs (planning, learning, verification), not therapy, productivity, or creativity, Stein said.
“We’re really focused on what people use Google for and making an AI for that so that you can come to Google, ask whatever you want, and get effortless information about that, and context and links to then also verify, dig in, and go to the authoritative sources ultimately that people want.”
So perhaps we should call it IEO (information engine optimization) instead of AEO, GEO, etc.?
Bottom line. Google Search isn’t shrinking – it’s expanding due to multimodal searches, according to Stein. It’s being rebuilt to be “the best at informational needs.” That means answering natural language questions, not making searchers speak “keyword-ese.”
The interview. Inside Google’s AI turnaround: AI Mode, AI Overviews, and vision for AI-powered search | Robby Stein
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