Google Search’s new AI makeover is the latest change the rest of the internet needs to navigate

Happy Friday! The hottest company in commodities is … Costco? Building off the success of its gold bars and silver coins, the retailer started selling 1-ounce platinum bars online for $1,090.

In today’s big story, Google Search is going to look a whole lot different thanks to generative AI.

What’s on deck:

But first, Search will never be the same (again).

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The big story

Searching for a new look

One down. One to go.

The internet’s most popular tool is getting a facelift thanks to AI.

Google is rolling out a series of generative AI-powered changes to Search, writes Business Insider’s Hugh Langley. It shows Big Tech’s continued push to leverage AI wherever possible, and the constant evolution of how people consume the internet.

The biggest adjustment is to Search’s layout, Hugh writes. That includes AI organizing page results into different categories, and highlighting different videos, forum links, and widgets. Goodbye, pages of blue links.

According to Rhiannon Bell, the vice president of user experience for Google Search, it’s a “pretty dramatic shift from where we were before.”

There are still a lot of caveats to the rollout — it’ll only activate for recipe-related questions initially and will be featured just on mobile — but it’s clearly the direction Google is taking its all-powerful tool.

And yes, in case you were wondering if it was coming, Google is going to start putting ads in its AI Search results — but only when Google deems them relevant.

Search’s revamp addresses a big concern for the rest of the internet.

Google will include hyperlinks directly into AI Overview results, which means more traffic for websites it’s sourcing information from, it says.

During the initial rollout of AI Overview, a major concern was whether it marked the end of the firehose of traffic Search sends websites. Why bother going to a site if I can get the answer directly from Search?

But there’s a bigger question of whether people want to get to the source at all.

Gen Z, which was raised on curation and aggregation, has fully bought into just getting the highlights. When it comes to a video or a story, they’re heading straight to the comments to get the tea.

Google probably doesn’t mind you staying only on its site. Remember: “Google will do the Googling for you.” And it’s not wrong. One survey conducted earlier this year found 60% of people who used Google’s AI search found it more effective than non-AI powered Search. (To be sure, the bar wasn’t that high.)

But putting our faith in the robots to find the nuance in things comes with risks. I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan on adding glue to my pizza anytime soon.

News brief

Top headlines

3 things in markets

1. Three magic factors to keep the bull rally alive. The two-year-old bull run in stocks could last another year if these three positive catalysts fall into place, strategists at Ned Davis Research said. Continued cooling inflation is one of three factors that could boost stocks 13% in the coming year.
2. Rise and shine, Apollo employees. There’s work to be done. The PE giant wants to double its assets under management in five years. To get there, the firm has some unique management tactics like 4:30 a.m. wake-up calls and free frozen yogurt.
3. You can now put your money where your mouth is when it comes to November’s election. Prediction market Kalshi won its legal fight with the CFTC to allow Americans to bet on the outcome of US elections. The regulator argued allowing betting would “threaten election integrity.”

3 things in tech

1. Morgan Stanley projects Amazon will cut 14,000 managers. The bank’s estimate, which it says will save the e-commerce giant $3 billion a year, comes after CEO Andy Jassy said he wanted to address bureaucratic bloat. While Amazon didn’t directly address the note, it said it “added a lot of managers” in recent years and that “now is the right time” to make a change.
2. Is the AI industry winner-takes-all or a race to the bottom? Famed investor Marc Andreessen posed the question at an AI conference in San Francisco this week. OpenAI’s chief product officer rose to answer it, and (spoiler!) he’s not worried about the tech’s future. In the meantime, one investor put a figure on the potential size of the AI market: $20 trillion.
3. MrBeast is now the proud owner of “LinkedIn for influencers.” The YouTube star recently acquired Vouch, a social media app that assists those in the creator economy in hiring and job postings. It’s the latest addition to his business-venture portfolio.

3 things in business

1. America’s getting hammered on hard seltzers. Canned alcoholic drinks were supposed to be the healthy alternative to beer: They have a beer-ish alcohol content, but a much softer impact on your gut. But now people are turning to canned margaritas and 12% ABV Cutwater spirits that leave them with more than just a light buzz.
2. More than 45,000 port workers are suspending their strike. The strike, which threatened to snarl everything from holiday shopping to auto production lines, was suspended until January after employers and striking dockworkers reached a tentative agreement on wages.
3. Office meltdown who? Though office vacancy is still high, there’s a shortage of high-end, newly built space that developers are rushing to fill. America’s white collar workers are still enamored with remote and hybrid work — but the data predict an office rebound on the horizon. (But one iconic NYC building hasn’t been so lucky.)

In other news

What’s happening today

• European Court of Justice rules on Meta’s data privacy case, which could set limits on how tech companies use personal data in the EU.
• US Department of Labor releases September employment data report.

The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Milan Sehmbi, fellow, in London. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York.