Google Search On 2022: Revolution Is Coming
The Internet is changing, evolving into something more. The old giants are going away: Facebook is experiencing problems with its metabolism, YouTube fears TikTik’s dominance, etc. Google feels like it has to change with the times, as well. During its recent Search On 2022 event, the company presented its view of the future. And it’s radical.
Search On 2022: What’s next
Type a query. Hit enter. Scroll the endless list of links. If that’s what you expect of a search engine, Google wants you to move on. Sure, there’s nothing bad about the lists of links, but they are so tired. The company wants search to be faster, more spontaneous, and more contextual. Thus multisearch was born — a way to use your camera to find an answer to your question. Just point your phone’s camera at an object and type in an additional query. And now with 70 new languages.
It seems like many of the improvements have been connected to a camera. More precisely, Google Lens has been upgraded massively. For example, instant translation is much cleaner now.
It seems like most improvements aren’t related to the web version of Google search. Yep, once again, Google is focused on the ever-growing mobile portion of the internet, and you, as a web developer, should too. The mobile-first mentality is here to stay. When presenting how search results look now, Google shows the mobile version of its engine. Makes sense. And now it’s more visual than ever, ditching lists and text even more. Take notice.
What else is new? The autocomplete is better now — supposedly. When you type the query, you get a row of suggestions. Tap on them, and speed up the process. Yes, it’s for mobile users once again.
When watching the event, we noticed Google execs repeating that the search was going through a reinvention phase. Everything changes massively! But so far, we haven’t seen any fundamental overhaul. The future, though, is not about additional prompts or visual additions — it’s about AI and how it interprets our queries. It is AI, after all, that powers Google Lens and that fancy new multisearch.
What’s more, Google is not in the business of answers anymore. Previously, Google promised to give a single answer to every question. Now it’s about exploration, encountering the unexpected, and learning about the inscrutable. Knowledge comes in many forms, and Google wants to present them to you. Search is indirect now, leading to unexpected results. It’s an experience in itself.