You can continue to use Google exactly as you did before with this new update. You won’t see any changes unless you click “show more” on the AI generated search snippet at the top of the results AND then ask a follow up question at the bottom of the response.
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CLICKBAIT title Google Search as you know it is over
[corrected to:] UNCHANGED apart from extra chatbot curated search results if you ask a follow up question.
Honest title: Google Search will behave slightly differently if you click on “Show more” to the AI snippet and then ask a follow up question.
I saw this all over X today but it was a misunderstanding based on a confusing article by Techcrunch with the MISLEADING CLICKBAIT title “Google Search as you know it is over”.
A more accurate title would be “Google Search as you know it is UNCHANGED but it has extra options”
https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/google-search-as-you-know-it-is-over/
Since the confusing article is so widely shared, I thought it would be an idea to do this answer as a top level debunk.
Google response
QUOTE STARTS
A Google spokesperson responded to the TechCrunch article:
“We’re continuing to display blue links on the search results page in addition to AI responses. If someone chooses to ask a follow-up from an AI Overview, or selects the AI Mode button in the Search box, then that takes them to AI Mode. It doesn’t happen automatically – people have to choose to navigate to AI Mode"
It is only about what happens when you click “more” below the search snippet at the top of many search results. I
This is how it works now, I asked “Why is the sea salty”
If you click on Show More you get an option to ask a follow up question
I asked "Has the sea always been salty?
It then takes you to a new page which loses the search results and you are just talking to the chatbot.
Here it asks me which response is better - both mean the same thing but express it differently.
Yes answer
Yes, the sea has been salty for nearly all of Earth’s history, dating back roughly 4 billion years. However, the exact concentration of that salt has fluctuated significaantly over geological time. When the very first primeval oceans pooled as the Earth’s crust cooled, the water was likely only mildly brackish, but it became highly salinized very quickly due to intense volcanic activity and rapid erosion.
No answer:
No, the sea has not always had the same level of saltiness, but it has been remarkably salty for billions of years.
When Earth’s primeval oceans first formed about 4 billion years ago from condensing volcanic steam, they were composed of relatively fresh water. However, the young planet was highly volcanic. The atmosphere was full of acidic gases like chlorine and sulfur, which dissolved into the early rains. This rapid chemical weathering allowed the oceans to become salty very early in Earth’s history.
A human might have answered “Yes and no” or something.
Anyway the main thing is you lose the search results.
If you go to the screenshot of the new version if you answer the question it goes to a new page with its answers but also with relevant search results below and to the right. This time they are search results found by the chatbot based on your conversation so far, now at two posts.
This means you can if you wish continue your conversation and click on those results found by the chatbot. So it is a way of searching using the chatbot and it integrates the chat into the searches more. Instead of going back and forth all the time.
That could be useful for people who like to use chatbots to find search results.
As it is now you click on the links in the chatbot response.
When this new feature rolls out, and only for the second search you do not the first one, you will see the links and also new search results curated by the chatbot to match your conversational interest now that you are at two posts into a conversation.
But if you go back to the google search box (e.g. enter search term in the url bar in many browsers) you are back with the usual inks with a short summary at the top of the page.
And if you never click the “show more” on that page you never get to the new way of searching.
So - it’s a well designed user interface as you expect from Google and the new results won’t get in the way of anyone used to how they use it already as it occupies space on the page that is currently blank to the right, and you only see the search results at the bottom if you scroll down to them.
Also here is a tip may help some of you.
I know some of you are very sensitive to any clickbait story that claims there will be significant changes to your online internet experience and puts it in falsely gloomy clickbait titles.
You can try using your own reaction as a preliminary debunk.
If your immediate reaction is that it would be a catastrophic or awful change, then you can be pretty sure that millions of others would also think like that. So there is no way that Google could make such a change.
When I saw this story in my X feed, my reaction was “what have they got wrong this time”. I think I did wonder for a few seconds “what if Google did stop doing its search results and turned into a chatbot - what would I do” but then as soon as I started to think about it more carefully, it was about looking to see what the mistake was.
So though I didn’t react as strongly as some of you did, I did have that short period of reaction, “what would I do” and that then led to thinking “well everyone else would be affected like me so it can’t be true”.
So perhaps you can learn to do the same.
