Search keeps evolving, but one thing is clear—there’s no single path forward. This week, we got rare insights from Google’s own Liz Reid, who emphasized that the blue link is far from dead, even as AI reshapes how people search and interact online.
Google is also making AI Mode more visual, expanding beyond text into richer, image-driven results, and is testing new action-powered features like booking a restaurant directly from Search.
Meanwhile, OpenAI is pushing ChatGPT further into commerce with Instant Checkout, moving the AI assistant from discovery into direct transactions.
In a recent interview with the Economic Times Podcast, Elizabeth (Liz) Reid, Google’s Global Head of Search, offered rare insights into how Google is rethinking search in the age of AI. Reid, who joined Google in 2003 and helped shape Google Maps, now leads strategy for how billions access information worldwide.
AI’s Long Road into Search
AI in Search isn’t new—transformers like BERT and MUM have been shaping rankings behind the scenes for years. What’s different now is how visible AI has become through AI Overviews and AI Mode, which Reid describes as still “the beginning of the journey.” Google’s challenge is moving boldly while remaining responsible, balancing speed with the trust of billions of users.
The Evolution of User Behavior
People aren’t just asking more questions—they’re asking longer, more complex ones. Queries today are two to three times longer than before, packed with context and constraints (“family-friendly restaurants outdoors for a 4-year-old and 7-year-old”). AI Mode’s conversational follow-ups lower the friction, making it easier for people to ask more, and ask deeper. Already, Google reports over 100 million monthly active users of AI Mode across the U.S. and India.
The Blue Link is “Far From Over”
Despite speculation, Reid insists the traditional blue link still matters. People want more than AI summaries—they want human voices, unique perspectives, and content that feels authentic. This is why Google is surfacing user-generated content, forums, and short-form video more prominently, while experimenting with inline links in AI Overviews to drive users back to creators and trusted sources.
SEO in the AI Era
For SEOs, the playbook is changing. Shallow content won’t cut it—if an AI can answer the query in seconds, users won’t click through. Reid emphasizes the importance of niche expertise, deep content, and great user experiences that deliver value beyond a quick fact. Publishers should focus less on manufacturing content for rankings and more on creating material worth a reader’s time.
India as a Testbed for Innovation
India is central to Google’s AI search evolution. It was the second country to get AI Mode, just weeks after the U.S., and will soon see Search Live rolled out. With India being Google’s largest market for Lens and Voice, Reid notes it’s not just adopting innovation but increasingly serving as a proving ground for global features.
Bottom Line
Reid’s perspective underscores that search is not being replaced by AI but reinvented with it. From AI Overviews to conversational modes, from blue links to short videos, the future of discovery will be a hybrid of AI assistance and human voices. For SEOs and creators, the message is clear: focus on trust, depth, and authentic expertise—because in Google’s evolving ecosystem, that’s what will stand out.
Google has introduced a major upgrade to AI Mode in Search, adding visual understanding and visual responses as part of a richer, more expressive search experience. Rather than relying solely on text, AI Mode can now interpret image plus text prompts, break queries into visual sub-topics, and return answers in grids that blend images and links.
Central to this is Google’s launch of a visual search fan-out technique. Rather than simply matching full images or single objects, the system “fan-outs” across image regions and contexts, issuing parallel subqueries that feed into a combined visual understanding. This allows AI Mode to unpack nuances—colors, textures, secondary objects—and surface responses that match the user’s intent more precisely.
For shopping queries especially, the update means you can now describe what you want (e.g. “barrel jeans that aren’t too baggy”) without having to navigate filters, and AI Mode will serve visual, shoppable results. Behind this is Google’s Shopping Graph, which helps connect visual prompts to product inventories, reviews, deals, and more.
Google says this rollout starts in English in the U.S. with visual capabilities, and will expand further.
What SEOs & Creators Should Watch
Bottom Line
With this update, Google is pushing AI Mode beyond text into a richer, more visual search experience. From shopping to complex queries, the ability to break down images and return grid-style results signals a shift toward more intuitive, multimodal search. For SEOs and businesses, this means optimizing not just written content but also the visual signals—images, metadata, and structured context—that help Google understand and surface your content in AI-driven results. The search journey is evolving, and those who adapt to this new visual layer will be best positioned to capture attention.
OpenAI has introduced Instant Checkout inside ChatGPT, enabling users to buy products directly within chat without leaving the conversation. The system is powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), an open standard co-developed with Stripe that lets AI agents, users, and merchants coordinate purchases securely and efficiently.
At launch, U.S. users in all tiers—free, Plus, Pro—can purchase single items from Etsy sellers. OpenAI plans to expand to Shopify merchants soon, support multi-item carts, and roll out to more regions. The “Buy” button appears next to qualifying products in chat or search results. When tapped, users confirm order, shipping, and payment details—ChatGPT handles passing the order to the merchant’s system via ACP.
OpenAI emphasizes that product results remain organic and unsponsored—having Instant Checkout enabled won’t automatically give a product preferential placement. When multiple merchants sell the same item, ranking uses factors like availability, price, quality, and whether Instant Checkout is supported. Merchants retain control over fulfillment, returns, customer relationships, and data; ChatGPT doesn’t replace their systems, it acts as a secure intermediary.
Stripe’s role is foundational: it not only powers the checkout pipeline but has also published the ACP specification so developers and businesses can adopt it. This open-source move signals OpenAI’s ambition to make agentic commerce interoperable across platforms. Meanwhile, merchants and developers can start integrating ACP into their current systems with minimal modifications.
Why This Matters & What to Watch
This shift is more than convenience—it signals that AI assistants are becoming commerce enablers, not just recommendation engines. For brands, this raises new stakes around catalog optimization, pricing data, fulfillment reliability, and AI visibility.
Because products are surfaced and purchased in chat without necessarily visiting a merchant site, the traditional SEO-to-website funnel could shrink or change. You’ll need to think not just about driving visits, but also being surfaced and transactable in AI environments.
Tracking, attribution, and analytics also need upgrades. Some purchases may bypass referral paths or standard UTM tracking. Monitoring and adapting your reporting systems will be essential.
Lastly: this is early days. The feature supports only single-item purchases in the U.S. (Etsy right now), with Shopify and multi-cart support coming later. This is a stepping stone toward broader agentic commerce, and how fast it scales will depend on adoption, merchant participation, and protocol support.
Google recently rolled out new agentic features in AI Mode via its Search Labs experiment, allowing the system to do more than just answer: now it can start taking actions on your behalf. This update was first publicized by Robby Stein (VP of Product, Google Search) on X, where he announced that restaurant reservation booking is now live for U.S. users who opt into the Labs experiment.
What’s Changing in AI Mode
With agentic capabilities enabled, Google can parse multi-part, constraint-based requests—such as “find me a dinner reservation for 3 people this Friday after 6 p.m. near Logan Square”—across multiple platforms (e.g. OpenTable, Resy, Tock) to surface real-time availability and booking options. Previously, AI Mode was focused on generating answers and overviews; now it’s starting to act as a task agent.
At launch, this capability is available only to U.S. users opted into Labs experiments, typically those using Google AI Ultra subscriptions. Google also announced that AI Mode is expanding to more than 180 countries in English, although the agentic features are initially limited.
Why It Matters
Bottom Line
Google’s move to bring agentic capabilities into AI Mode is a clear step toward turning Search into more than an information hub—it’s becoming a tool that can take real actions for users. While the initial rollout is limited to restaurant reservations in the U.S., the implications go far beyond dining. For businesses, this means ensuring structured data, real-time availability, and seamless integrations are in place. For SEOs and marketers, it signals a future where measuring success goes beyond clicks to include completed actions inside Google’s ecosystem.
Taken together, these shifts show where search is heading—away from being purely informational and toward being interactive, visual, and action-oriented. For SEOs and site owners, that means the fundamentals of quality content and trust still matter, but so does preparing for new engagement models where AI may handle part of the journey before users ever land on your site. The future of discovery is shaping up to be a blend of blue links, AI overviews, visuals, and direct actions. The key, as always, will be to adapt early and find opportunities within the change.
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