I chuckled when I saw the words “Search was broken” on the LinkedIn profile of Stefan Weitz.
This assessment had nothing to do with Google Search in 2024. Rather, he was talking about Google in 2010. This was a time when Google was loved despite only answering one in four queries successfully, according to Weitz.
So what does the former director of Microsoft’s Bing search engine think of search in the generative AI era? Is Google still broken? Even more broken?
I caught up with Weitz yesterday to discuss the evolution of search in this AI era and how it can improve. Weitz is now co-founder and CEO of HumanX, an organization building a community for artificial intelligence (AI) and its deployment – but he still has plenty of thoughts about search.
Search is still broken. Search engines are great for many things. However, search engines still struggle to effectively help users accomplish their goals, Weitz said:
Dig deeper. Survey: 54% of people look through more search results vs. 5 years ago
How search + LLMs are evolving. Voice agents were a big deal seven or eight years ago. Alexa, Siri, Cortana and others attempted to become a primitive version of the “Star Trek” computer.
While LLMs are magical, Weitz said they won’t get us to the “Star Trek” computer or AGI (artificial general intelligence) – though he thinks they will help lead us there – for two reasons:
The future of AI Overviews and answer engines. Google will continue to push AI Overviews, while rivals (ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, Claude, etc.) will continue to develop new AI search experiences. The key to success will be ensuring the AI experiences are truly adding value for people, Weitz said:
Changing search habits. As highlighted in U.S. vs. Google antitrust trial, it’s hard to change user behavior. Weitz’s own search behavior has changed in the past two years and he expects it has and will continue to change for more users. Maybe not for navigational queries (looking for a particular website or webpage) but for those who want answers to more complex questions.
Needed AI search innovation. If Weitz were put in charge of Google Search tomorrow, what things would he address to improve today’s experience?
Flashback to 2010. Bing’s Stefan Weitz: Rethinking The Search Experience