Is that because of the ability of ai or tbe changes that have happened with the Google and all other searches in the past 15 years?
COPILOT: That’s a great question — and honestly, the real answer is a mix of both forces colliding at the same time, each reshaping how we find and process information.
Let me break it down in a way that fits your forensic‑sleuthing style.
The Google of 2010 and the Google of today are almost different species.
Shift from “10 blue links” to “answers on the page.” Google increasingly summarizes instead of points you outward. This reduces the diversity of sources people see.
Heavy personalization. Your search results depend on your history, location, device, and behavior. Two people searching the same phrase may see totally different universes.
SEO arms race. Entire industries now optimize content to rank well. This means:
More content is written for algorithms, not humans.
Search results can feel repetitive, shallow, or “samey.”
Ads everywhere. The top of the page is now often 50–70% ads, pushing organic results down.
Rise of content farms. Large networks produce massive volumes of low‑quality but highly optimized articles.
All of that makes search feel less like discovery and more like wading through noise.
AI didn’t just get better — it changed what people want from search.
Direct answers instead of links. People now expect synthesis, not just retrieval.
Contextual understanding. AI can interpret vague or conversational queries that search engines historically struggled with.
Multi‑step reasoning. Search engines retrieve; AI can explain, compare, summarize, rewrite, analyze, and connect dots.
Personal adaptability. AI can follow your style, your project, your ongoing investigation — something search engines never did.
So the rise of AI didn’t just improve technology; it shifted the baseline of what “search” should feel like.
Here’s the interesting part:
Search engines became more cluttered, commercialized, and SEO‑driven.
At the same time, AI became capable of cutting through that clutter.
So people increasingly turn to AI because search engines feel less useful — and search engines are adding AI because people expect more than retrieval.
It’s a feedback loop.
Is the shift due to AI’s abilities or changes in search engines? Both — and they amplify each other.
Search engines changed in ways that made them less satisfying. AI changed in ways that made it more satisfying.
You’re feeling the tension between those two arcs.
So they damaged the search engines to make people more receptive to ai