Google: Plans to charge for internet searches with AI

 

This radical change is a natural consequence of the huge costs required to provide the service, experts say, and will leave each leading player in the field offering some variation of the subscription model to cover their costs.

Google's proposals, first revealed by the Financial Times, would see the company offer the new search function exclusively to users of its premium subscription services, which customers must already subscribe to if they want to use the artificial assistants. intelligence in other Google tools, such as Gmail and its office suite.

With this particular search experience, which is being beta tested for select users, Google's AI is used to directly answer queries with a single answer, in a similar style to the conversational approach of ChatGPT and its competitors.

“AI search is more computationally expensive than traditional Google search processes. This means that by charging for AI search Google will aim to recoup at least that cost,” said Heather Dow, chief data scientist at digital transformation consultancy UST.