At I/O, Google Pronounced the Internet Dead

Google’s AI tools in search pretend like the internet is free for the taking.

EXPERT OPINION BY JASON ATEN, TECH COLUMNIST @JASONATEN

19 May 2026, USA, Mountain View: The Google manager responsible for the search engine, Liz Reid, presents a search field improved with artificial intelligence at the Google I/O developer conference. Photo: Andrej Sokolow/dpa (Photo by Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images)

For most of the history of the internet, there was a pretty straightforward arrangement between Google and the rest of the web. Google would crawl and index websites so that when people searched for information, they would ask Google,........

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