you know, there is a third group - a large number of users which find the AI overview useful

Which is saddening as the first thing I think when I see this overview is "How do I verify this statement is correct" and paradoxically it sometimes just slows me down.

> the vast majority of users won't have an opinion

They're here, they don't care how they get from point A to point B, the tech used to achieve that result is completely irrelevant to them. AI? Great. Not AI such as the Instant Answers era? Also great. Average Joe does not spend his time thinking about the economics of the web.

But you shouldn't confuse them finding "AI" useful now with them being attached to it long term. It's a hip new tool now, but the novelty will fade and Google will have to re-invent themselves all over again. If anything, they kinda screwed themselves over by calling this "AI". AI is supposed to be something within reach, but always some years away. By wasting that term for the current era, it's gonna suck so hard to think of a new marketing term that's gonna be seen as an improvement in comparison to the term "AI".

Yeah hate to say it, because I am an AI hater, but I love the AI results in Google and Kagi. I barely click results anymore for basic questions unless it's something important enough for me to need verification to ensure the AI-gen answer wasn't a hallucination. It's been so nice not having to pick through the cesspool that is StackOverflow to find answers to quick cli questions, or wade through SEO-generated, Amazon-affiliate link garbage for more general questions.

Very large even. Especially considering the explosion of ai-crap in the search results