Google's Search Head — Fixing Recipe Websites + Rise of Visual Search

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2024-10-09

YouTube video id: qRn7xwxBLWs

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRn7xwxBLWs

I'm surprised to hear you say that
recipes are going to be something that
people are going to want to go to the
web for because to me it just feels like
it's going to be the exact opposite that
they're just going to go to Ai and
they're going to be smart about these
queries and say listen like give me a
recipe uh for this dish in the spirit of
this chef and then it just spits it out
and you don't have to scroll through
like uh all the all that text that you
do now on Google or when you're finding
a web page through Google yeah I think
you really think we're going to want to
be on the web it's like the worst
experience on the web is
recipes I think uh there are there are
definitely recipe web pages that are
better or worse than others um although
I think there are great videos on that I
think um you often want a tried recipe
right I mean I think we'll see where AI
how far AI goes but now when they want
do this they make up recipes that the AI
makes up recipes that have roughly the
right ingredients in some somewhat
random proportion right um I think
that's different than that um experience
of hearing a great tried and true recipe
um I do think some of the web pages of
recipes could be nicer to consume for
sure um but uh but a tried and true
recipe I think goes a long way and
people spend lots of time crafting
recipes of their flavor so we'll see
we'll see where it goes we'll see where
it goes over time um but I think
certainly at this point in time people
really still appreciate actually trusted
recipes instead of um madeup recipes on
the Fly Liz let me ask you this you're
the head of search at Google a lot of
people look at these recipe pages and
they say they're just responding to
Google and that's why you have to scroll
through like you know 3,000 characters
of text before you get to the recipe why
is that happening and can you fix that
um we
uh our guidelines do not actually
encourage you to put 3,000 lines of
characters but people continue to do
that for a variety of reasons um we are
trying to continue to experiment with
what are ways with recipes to to make
them easier to consume um because we do
hear user frustration um on um browsing
some of the recipes um so we'll continue
to focus on how do we make higher
quality and we'll experiment um and work
with the ecosystem to think about how
can we make the recipe experience better
broader um not just on the search
results page but in your whole journey
so another thing that's we're seeing is
that Google is getting more interested
in visual search this is again from your
from your blog post you're going to have
video understanding in Google Lens so
Google lens is a product where you can
point it at different scenes in the real
world and it will give you information
so can understand in real time with
video you can ask it questions with
voice you can shop the things that the
items that you see with lens um talk a
little bit about these updates with lens
and honestly like I'm not a lens person
but it seems like it's a big product
within Google so what is the adoption uh
looking like right now yeah um at this
point we have nearly 20 billion queries
a month um across so and it's one of our
fastest growing segments um so people
really do enjoy it um I think people
have a range of different questions they
go so they'll do it from homework or
education they'll see a plant and want
to ask um but they'll also go see a cool
shirt online and want to figure out
where they can go get it right um and so
they use it for a range of questions all
those questions we saw before with lens
you'd see people attempt to issue these
queries and it's really hard can I have
a shirt that's kind of strip but really
thin like it was just very difficult to
describe there's a reason people say a
picture is worth a thousand um words and
so as we unlocked that we saw people ask
more and more questions um and so the
addition of things like um video and
voice that were announcing today is
really just the
continuation of our efforts to make
search more natural and intuitive that's
what you might do with a friend you
might point to something and ask about
it it's what you might do to a
shopkeeper can I find a dress like that
but in green okay um the a common
example with video that we find people
like a lot is appliances the appliance
goes it breaks and something is blinking
and you don't really know how to
describe it and you're like what is
wrong with this thing um and now you can
take a video pointed at it and and ask
you know what's wrong how do I fix this
um and it will understand what's
actually going on with the different
blinking lights and give you tips um
other times we've done examples where
people pointed and asked about a game
they know how to play um in my household
uh rules get dropped get deleted somehow
they get I don't know where they go I
don't know if they get thrown out I
don't but somehow the instructions
constantly disappear um and then you
want to go back and play that game you
haven't played for a while how do you
actually play it right you can um very
quickly then point at the game and say
how do I play this and it'll give you
instructions so continue to ask this
question about how do we make search
really natural um how do we make it as
easy as it would be to ask a friend who
happened to know everything um and we
just continue along that multimodality
has really been exciting to watch what
people do with it so when Netflix came
out Netflix was all about mailing you
DVDs and they said there was something
in the name that was preent right that
you would eventually watch your flicks
on the net and lo and behold it's a
streaming service today
and the name
lens very interesting because a lens is
something you might have in a pair of
glasses it's not really something that
people think about with a phone is this
just this product where you point your
phone and you ask Google things about
the things you see in the real world and
you're seeing a lot of growth with it is
this just a middle stage before you end
up putting this technology in
glasses um I think as glasses come out
the technology feels very logical to put
out in classes um I think we're a long
way away from everyone having glasses um
in practice and so I think probably even
as lens come even as glasses come out
people will continue to do it with their
phone but I do think it's it's a very
logical thing to bring to glasses as
well to ask questions that you see in
the real world um and so I think we'll
continue to help people as glasses come
in such a way we just had Andrew
Bosworth the chief technology officer of
meta on the show last week and we talked
about Orion which is I think the first
legitimate augmented reality piece of
technology I've ever seen I had a chance
to try it out I've talked about on the
show before talked about it with BOS I
mean it is crazy it layers Computing
right on the real world uh without
needing to wear like The Vision Pro or
the
Oculus what did you think when you saw
that come out saw that piece of
technology come out because that is it
seems like that's the end form factor
that like something like a lens uh would
be useful
for I think we continue to see form
factors um that both layer on top of
each other um so I don't think there's a
one- siiz fits-all in the same way that
uh mobile didn't completely replace
desktop either um and so I would expect
that that people have a set um but I do
think that question of classes asks or
some other form factor that's just on
your face you have questions all of the
time um and if you don't have to pull
out your phone and you can just ask
right away right just faster right and
so but were you impressed when you saw
when you saw or I haven't got to play
with I haven't got to play with Orion
myself in person to to know what it's
like um on the one so I just have seen
the news articles isn't it so the
history of of Google though right if you
think about it a website on Internet
Explorer a toolbar on Internet Explorer
a browser um a mobile operating system
Google's always gotten ahead of the
latest way to deliver uh yeah to deliver
search to you in the actual place you
are so to speak yeah is an incumbent on
Google to build a pair of glasses like
that is that in development I I'm not in
a good position to speak of that we can
have you follow up with uh actually to
know more on on Google's plans more
broadly um but I do think search is well
positioned um with the technology we've
been building on for
multimodality um and making information
accessible that as that technology
evolves um will continue to be really
helpful for
people okay
um
so trying to think had one more question
about that
and I totally lost
it okay hi I'm sure if you think of it
five minutes later you can ask yeah okay
so let's just talk about speaking of
adoption let's talk about the
performance of AI overviews which we've
talked about a bit here I don't know if
if it's I've had it long enough but I
haven't fully noticed it but I asked my
folks on X are are they noticing Ai
overviews and in Search and 84% of
people have noticed them so can you talk
a little bit about the adoption and and
the response from users now that AI
overviews are out in
public yeah um what we've seen um is is
sort of three things that I would
highlight um first that people who
encounter AI reviews they search more um
because basically those questions that
they would previously think about and
decide not to ask they bring to Google
search so it's not just that they um
search more in the moment they'll
actually come back to search more often
directly um the second is that they find
those results more helpful um it it get
they like the balance of both the
overview and the ability to jump off and
dig more on the web and that balance
they they really appreciate um and the
third is that they get to encounter a
wider range of sources across the web
that they can experience um and I would
say overall I've been I've been quite
pleased watching it um it's the type of
thing where you're like it's a brand new
technology how will people encounter it
um and the level of satisfaction both in
the results but in the in the choice to
come to Google search more that's a high
bar to get people to decide to take out
their phone in extra time right um and
so when you see that sense that people
actually issue more queries you know
that you're really building something
that people value does it change the way
that they they query yeah so one of the
things we see is that people issue
longer queries um and that's essentially
that one of it doesn't mean they're
writing paragraphs and paragraphs but
they they add a few more of the words
they think about in that first one
instead of taking your query and trying
to figure out how you condense it down
to something um the it thinks the search
engine someone thinks the search engine
will understand they ask more of their
question directly um and so they'll add
additional pieces and not just natural
language but sort of more of the
constraints or the aspects of the
problem they want okay yeah and that
brings up new questions in terms of
monetization and AD product and also
what it means for news publishers so I
want to talk about that and more when we
come back right after this