Get unlimited access to everything VICE has to offer.

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

4 Magazines Delivered to Your Door

We independently evaluate all of our recommendations. When you buy through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more here.

Google’s Search Bar Looking a Little Weird Today? This Is Why.

Google’s basic search just got a massive infusion of AI, whether you want it or not.

By Matt Jancer | Reviewed by Ysolt Usigan

Share on X (Opens in new window)X

Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Facebook

Share using Native toolsShareCopied to clipboard

Ever since Google became the dominant search engine around the turn of the millennium, it’s functioned in more or less the same way. You type your keywords, and out pops a list of glowy-blue links, with tiny summaries in black text underneath each, provided by the website owner themselves.

Then on May 20, 2026 Google announced a fairly major overhaul of how Google search works. Today’s changes go far beyond the AI summaries that’d been appearing at the top of Google searches for the past couple of years, and they’re already causing plenty of anger, confusion, and hand-wringing across the internet.

Rather than simply provide a sidelong glance’s worth of an AI-summarized paragraph or two, as is currently the default on Google searches, the new AI infusion unleashes Google to take a much more comprehensive role and push AI-generated summaries, graphs, and charts to the forefront, along with tasks, such as finding tickets for sports games and movies.

Google’s Gemini........

© Vice