The era of the “ten blue links” is officially over.

Google unveiled a sweeping AI-powered overhaul of Search at its I/O conference Tuesday, TechCrunch reported, centered on what the company calls the biggest change to the search box in more than 25 years. Instead of returning a simple list of links, Google Search will drop users into AI-powered interactive experiences, starting this week.

The reimagined search box expands to accommodate longer, conversational queries without forcing users to pick a search mode at the start. A new AI-powered query suggestion system moves beyond autocomplete, helping users craft more complex queries. AI Overviews now allow follow-up questions in AI Mode, which launched last year and already has more than 1 billion monthly users.

The rise of information agents

Perhaps the most consequential change: users will be able to create, customize, and manage multiple “information agents” within Google Search starting this summer. These agents work in the background 24/7, tracking changes on the web and alerting users when conditions are met, pulling from real-time data and delivering synthesized updates.

It’s an evolution of Google Alerts, the change-detection service Google launched in 2003. “You could send an alert to track market movements in a particular sector with very specific parameters, and the agent will map out a monitoring plan for you, including the tools and the data it needs to access,” said Liz Reid, Google’s head of Search. “And it will then keep track of those changes and let you know when the conditions are met, and provide a synthesized update with links and information you can dive into further.”

The shift means “searching the web” will increasingly be performed by AI agents rather than humans. People will spend less time clicking links and more time acting on synthesized information. It’s a shift our coverage of the answer engine era has been tracking closely.

Generative UI and mini apps

Google is also introducing “generative UI”—building custom widgets and visualizations on the fly in response to users’ search questions. A query about black holes could generate an interactive visual that users can then ask follow-up questions about, with Google responding with brand-new visuals in real time. Search results will increasingly look like interactive web pages.

The system, built in partnership with Google DeepMind using Gemini Flash 3.5, will also let users tap into Google’s Antigravity platform to build personalized mini apps directly in Search using natural-language commands, such as meal-planning apps that factor in your calendar, fitness apps tailored to your goals.

AI Overviews now has more than 2.5 billion monthly users. Conversational search (AI Mode) tops 1 billion monthly users. For context, ChatGPT has 900 million weekly active users, suggesting ChatGPT sees more frequent repeated engagement, while Google reaches more unique people across its AI features in a month.

The publisher problem

Combined, these changes will likely deepen the toll on publisher referral traffic, which has already been decimated since AI Overviews launched. Some ad-dependent media operations have already been pushed out of business. The UK CMA has been pressuring Google to let publishers opt out of AI Overviews without losing search visibility, a request Google has yet to act on.

The new search box arrives this week. Generative UI rolls out free to everyone this summer. Information agents and mini-app building launch first to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers this summer, with broader free access planned for Spark and other AI features down the line.

Sundar Pichai framed it as an accessibility play. “Part of the reason we focus on delivering frontier models—highly capable, but also very efficient, fast, and at a lower price—is because we want to bring it to as many people as possible,” he said in a press briefing ahead of I/O.

For publishers, there is very little time left to adapt.

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Tubi is bringing its 300,000-title library directly into ChatGPT — and betting that the future of entertainment discovery looks a lot like asking a chatbot for recommendations.

The free streaming service, owned by Fox Corporation, announced Tuesday that it has launched a native app inside ChatGPT, becoming what it claims is the first major streamer to integrate directly into OpenAI’s conversational interface. Users can type “@Tubi” in any ChatGPT thread and describe what they’re in the mood for. “A movie that feels like a fever dream but isn’t horror,” for example, and receive curated results pulled from Tubi’s catalog, complete with a direct “Watch on Tubi” link that jumps straight to playback on web or mobile.

The move reflects a broader shift in how platforms are thinking about content discovery. Rather than scrolling through interfaces or searching by title, viewers are increasingly describing intent in natural language and platforms want to be present at that moment of decision. Mike Bidgoli, Tubi’s chief product and technology officer, framed it as a natural extension of how AI agents are becoming a primary way people navigate the internet. “Streaming should feel effortless,” he said. “At the core of Tubi is a deeply scaled personalization and discovery system, trained on more than 1 billion monthly hours of viewing from over 100 million active users.”

The timing aligns with Tubi’s release of its annual Stream 2026 study, which found that 80% of respondents said they would rather watch TV or movies than scroll social media — a signal that audiences are becoming more selective about how they allocate attention, and that discovery friction matters more than ever. For a free, ad-supported service like Tubi, reducing the distance between “I’m bored” and “I’m watching something” is a direct path to more impressions. For publishers broadly, the question of who gets paid as AI reshapes discovery is becoming increasingly urgent.

The ChatGPT integration is also a reminder that streaming platforms are no longer competing just with each other — they’re competing with every interface where a recommendation can surface and a viewing session can begin. The broader battle over how AI accesses and pays for content is playing out across the industry, with the open web losing ground as AI-driven answers reduce the need to click through to original sources.

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Yahoo launched Scout this week, an AI-powered “answer engine” built on Anthropic’s Claude that takes a notably different approach from competitors: it actually wants users to click through to source websites.

In testing by The Verge’s David Pierce, Scout displayed nine links prominently in blue text for a single weather query—a stark contrast to Google’s AI Mode, Perplexity, and ChatGPT, which tend to hide sources behind icons or light-colored buttons. “Only Scout seems to actually want you to click the links,” Pierce wrote.

That design choice isn’t altruistic. Yahoo operates its own newsroom and maintains partnerships with publishers across its Finance, Sports, and News verticals. Driving traffic to those sources protects relationships that feed Scout’s data advantage.

Yahoo is also joining Microsoft’s Publisher Content Marketplace pilot, a revenue-sharing program aimed at connecting publishers with new audiences—a signal that the company views publisher relationships as a business priority, not an afterthought.

“We’re the only ones who can take our user data, our usage data, our content, our relationships and information, and combine that with everything we know about search into an AI answer engine,” Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone told The Verge.

The timing matters for publishers watching AI search cannibalize their traffic. Google’s AI Mode threatens the click-based advertising model that funds most digital journalism. A credible alternative that prioritizes links could pressure other platforms to follow.

Scout launches with affiliate links for shopping results and ads at the bottom of some searches. Lanzone says the goal is keeping the service free, with a potential paid tier later.

For newsrooms evaluating AI search’s impact on referral traffic, Scout offers an early test case. If users actually click those prominent links—and if Yahoo can grow market share beyond its current third-place position—it could demonstrate that AI search and the open web aren’t mutually exclusive.

Whether Google feels any pressure to match that approach remains the bigger question.

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