Google Is Great. Its AI Is the Leader, Just As Philco Was
July 15, 2025
No smart software involved with this blog post. (An anomaly I know.)
The Google and its Code Red Yellow or whatever has to pull a revenue rabbit out of its ageing Stetson. (It is a big Stetson too.) Microsoft found a way to put Googzilla on its back paw in January 2023. Mr. Nadella announced a deal with OpenAI and ignited the Softies to put Copilot in everything, including the ASCII editor Notepad.
Google demonstrated a knee jerk reaction. Put Prabhakar in Paris to do a stand up about Google AI. Then Google reorganized its smart software activities… sort of. The wizards at Google has pushed out like a toothpaste tube crushed by a Stanford University computer science professor’s flip flops. Suffice it to say there are many Google AI products and services. I gave up trying to keep track of them months ago.
What’s happened? Old-school, Google searches are work now. Some sites have said that Google referral traffic is down a third or more.
What’s up?
“Google Faces Threat That Could Destroy Its Business” offers what I would characterize as a Wall Street MBA view of the present day Google. The write up says:
As the AI boom continues to transform the landscape of the tech world, a new type of user behavior has begun to gain popularity on the web. It’s called zero-click search, and it means a person searches for something and gets the answer they want without clicking a single link. There are several reasons for this, including the AI Overview section that Google has added to the top of many search result pages. This isn’t a bad thing, but what’s interesting is why Google is leaning into AI Overview in the first place: millions of people are opening ChatGPT instead of Google to search for the things they want to know.
The cited passage suggests that Google is embracing one-click search, essentially marginalizing the old-school list of links. Google has made this decision because of or in response to OpenAI. Lurking between the lines of the paragraph is the question, “What the heck is Google doing?”
On July 9, Reuters exclusively reported that OpenAI would soon launch its own web browser to challenge Google Chrome’s dominance.
This follows on OpenAI’s stating that it would like to buy the Chrome browser if the US government forces Google to sell is ubiquitous data collection interface with users. Start ups are building browsers. Perplexity is building browsers. The difference is that OpenAI and Perplexity will use AI as plumbing, not an add on. Chrome is built as a Web 1 and Web 2 service. OpenAI and Perplexity are likely to just go for Web 3 functionality.
What’s that look like? I am not sure, but it will not come from some code originally cooked up someplace like Denmark and refurbished many times to the ubiquitous product we have today.
My view is that Google is somewhat disorganized when it comes to smart software. As the company tries to revolutionize medicine, create smart maps, and build expensive self driving taxis — people are gravitating to ChatGPT which is now a brand like Kleenex or Xerox. Perplexity is a fan favorite at the moment as well. To add some spice to the search recipe, Anthropic and outfits like China Telecom are busy innovating.
What about Google? We are about to learn how a former blue chip consultant will give Google more smarts. Will that intelligence keep the money flowing and growing? Why be a Debbie Downer. Google is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Those legal actions are conspiracies fueled by jealous competitors. Those staff cutback? Just efficiencies. Those somewhat confusing AI products and services? Hey, you are just not sufficiently Googley to see the brilliance of Googzilla’s strategy.
Okay, I agree. Google is wonderful and the Wall Street MBA type analysis is wonky, probably written with help from Grok or Mistral. Google is and will be wonderful. You can search for examples too. Give Perplexity a try.
Stephen E Arnold, July 15, 2025
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