What’s the point of Gemini if ​​Google Search turns into Gemini?

In the last few years Google I/O has been the scene for purely AI-related announcements, and this year was no different. But this time, the focus is back on Google Search, but perhaps not in the way we expected. Instead of solving long-standing fundamental problems in search, Google introduced many AI integrations The line between Google Search and Gemini is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish.

While AI Insights and AI Mode were meaningful additions to Search despite their rough beginnings, it now appears that Google is combining two products with fundamentally different goals. It makes one wonder: if Search can now behave like Gemini, what exactly should Gemini be?

Artificial intelligence has fundamentally changed the way we interact with search engines. Many of us have already become more conversational in our surveys, writing longer questions, explaining our perspective, using natural language, and asking follow-up questions. New unified search box – it brings together the simplicity of regular search and justification of AI — further reduces friction because users no longer have to think about using the right keywords in searches.

The primary input method for searching was text, but we’ve long been able to search images in reverse quite successfully. The next logical step is to give it multi-modal capability to help it understand and search different types of media, such as video and audio, and combine them with your text input. And finally, it’s smarter to monitor price drops and new product launches in the background and alert you as soon as you see something moving.

In search, such information agents are really useful, as long as you can fight another avalanche of notifications from your search engine. This feature, in particular, sits on the borderline that differentiates the Search from the Gemini.

Search should have a very specific function: browsing the web and finding direct links that match the query. Gemini, on the other hand, also has access to the entire World Wide Web and all the information within it, but his job goes a few steps further – to understand that information and explain it to me in a way that I understand. AI Reviews and the AI ​​has partially taken over the mode This work remains intact within Search, but Gemini’s separate identity is unaffected by its multimodal capabilities, built-in generative tools, and Google Workspace-wide integration.

Only now, Google Search inherits some of these generative skills. In addition to allowing you to ask additional questions, Akhtar now takes agent coding capabilities from Gemini and lets it create interactive elements from scratch to help you better understand your topic. Google didn’t stop there. It went a step further and introduced the ability to create status widgets within Search, allowing you to create dynamic layouts, dashboards, and interactive widgets for long-term projects like home remodeling or wedding planning.

It’s useful, but Google Search no longer retrieves information for you. Instead, it’s about creating everything from scratch, building workflows, and managing ongoing projects. When I think about these possibilities, my mind goes to using Gemini, not Search. If I wanted a complex topic explained through interactive tools and elements, Search would honestly be the last place I’d expect to look for something like this.

This irregular application overlaps between two of Google’s most used products. It’s almost as if Google accidentally makes Search its true AI assistant, even though Gemini exists as its own app and brand.

We understand their respective goals: Search has always been a tool for discovering new things and getting quick answers, while Gemini is more concerned with planning, reasoning, creating, and executing. often use Gemini to replace some mundane tasks in my workflow. While I understand that AI will naturally blur some boundaries, it shouldn’t change the core role of each product, and right now, it looks like Google is pushing Search and Twins in the same direction.

I was confused by the Google I/O presentation, and I’m sure many users will be too. If a question pops into my head right now, I know it’s for Search or Gemini, depending on the type of output I want. If I wanted to buy a pair of sneakers I came across somewhere, I would go to Search to find the brand’s website. If I wanted to understand what makes sneakers so comfortable, I would direct my inquiry to Gemini. When the lines became blurred, I would spend more time wondering which tool would be better for the task than actually interacting with it and getting my answers before moving on.

From my point of view, Google is grossly ignoring the branding advantage it has. Instead of letting Search do all the generative work, why not give it to Gemini? Thus, Search fulfills the purpose of discovery, while Gemini handles the planning and execution part. This middle ground doesn’t dilute any product’s individual personality, and it also saves us from having to remember dozens of tool names in Search — AI Mode, AI Insights, and more.

Having covered Google for so long, I already know that it’s not going to make things simple, at least not without hitting a roadblock first. But I will ask again.

With Google disavowing the Gemini brand everywhere for the past few years, while also rebranding its most popular product, Search, as Gemini, why not stick with the transition and call it Gemini Search? If Search can handle everything that Gemini can – and now it does – then what was the point of branding Gemini separately in the first place?

Google Search has changed almost as fast as artificial intelligence in the past few years — and that speed has not only exacerbated its existing problems, but also introduced new ones. These days, Google Search is filled with SEO-optimized spam and AI-generated content that undermines trust in the quality of the results so much that we often resort to redditing our queries just to get real answers from people.

Not long ago AI performances were severely criticized because they make a complete mess of their summaries. Some of them even endangered human life by equating parachutes with simple backpacks. While these issues have been greatly reduced, Google is now in full swing to transform Search into a full-fledged AI platform. Instead of completely overhauling the web’s storefront experience, Google is simply putting it together with artificial intelligence, hoping you won’t see the crumbling foundation underneath.

It’s pretty clear that Google wants AI to be everywhere, but the real problem is that Gemini and Search are two interpretations of the same basic idea. And as that overlap only grows from here, it’s hard to understand why Google would want them both to exist separately. Google should either kill one of these services or let them live up to their individual potential – I see no other way out.