[mrweasel]

While I'm not opposed to the idea that Google AI mode is so good that people use it more, I also feel like the average person only have so many queries per day. Google statement would indicate that people had a number of queries that they just opted to ignore, because find the answers was to cumbersome.

I'm not entirely sure I'm buying that, unless users keep prompting the AI to reduce the amount of reading they need to do. Sort of interrogating the AI, rather than reading a Wikipedia page.

[Legend2440]

AI mode isn't for queries, it's for questions. You ask it direct, specific things like 'how do I do <x> in <y>' and it provides a fast answer.

People have many more questions in their life than they do queries.

[gbalduzzi]

In programming forums like Hacker News people are incredibly detached from the average experience with technology, sometimes it is buffling.

Most non technical people I know asked questions to Google even before the AI overview. Instead of looking for the answer in seo-bloated articles, they find it in the overview.

I think google should improve in detecting the kind of query when I need a link that I don't remember, and deactivate the overview on those. If I search for "ryanair booking" I clearly need the url for booking a Ryanair flight, AI overview is useless

[Legend2440]

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1497/

If programmers and engineers are saying "why would anyone want that?", odds are the product will be a gigantic success.

[dandanua]

The fact that users are using more search queries means they can't find what they want with a lesser number of queries. It seems that Google's PR team doesn't have an incentive to understand that, or thinks that everyone else is stupid.

[bluefirebrand]

My guess is that they are spinning it as "users enjoy talking to the AI instead of searching, so they do it more"

Rather than "users don't find what they want with the AI as easily so they have to spend longer with it"