Google CEO Sundar Pichai: Big Changes to Search Next Year

Google CEO Sundar Pichai says that when it comes to AI, “we are in the earliest stages of a profound shift.”

Pichai explained at the New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday that AI models are going to get better at reasoning and carrying out actions reliably over the next few years. The upgrades to AI models will have an impact on Google Search, which will “change profoundly” next year, he stated.

“I think we are going to be able to tackle more complex questions than ever before,” Pichai said. “I think you’ll be surprised even early in ’25 the kind of newer things Search can do compared to where it is today.”

Google has nearly 90% of the global search engine market, according to Stat Counter.

^{Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, at DealBook. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images}

Google has already pushed a series of AI-related changes to search this year, including adding AI overview summaries to the top of search results in May. That same month, reports emerged of Google’s AI overviews hallucinating, or telling users to eat rocks and make pizza sauce with glue.

Since its initial rollout, AI overviews have come to rely less on sources like Reddit and more on sites with specialized expertise, like Healthline and Runnersworld, according to a June study from SEO platform SE Ranking.

Related: Google’s AI Overview Has Changed Since Its Debut, and These Websites Have Benefitted the Most

Earlier this week, Google introduced a new AI model that beat the world’s most accurate modeling system in predicting the weather. It even predicted extreme weather, even though it was not trained to do so.

At DealBook, Pichai also said that Google is also gearing up to release its next generation of AI models.

“I just think there’s so much innovation ahead,” he said.