Sundar Pichai Says "AI Mode" is a "Total Reimagining of Search" Is it?

Google AI Mode is said, by Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, to be a "total reimagining of search."

 

 So maybe AI language models, and the firms that hope to do so, are not necessarily going to displace search. Maybe search evolves. 

But one has to wonder what other changes might be coming, such as the value of search engine optimization and the way advertising business models work in the context of search. 

 The past focus on keywords almost certainly will change. User intent likely becomes more important. 

Will some form of “product placement” (as happens with professional video content) become more widespread? In other words, an AI inquiry result might also include an embedded link to buy a product. 

And potential advertisers might pay for the privilege of providing those links. 

To leverage AI's capabilities for hyper-personalization, advertisers might need to provide more first-party data (their own customer data) to AI models. But search ad platforms might then create revenue by charging such advertisers for the hyper personalization then possible. 

But click-through rates and traffic seem less important. If a language model provides a direct answer, there is no need to scroll through links.