I enjoyed this interview with Google’s head of Search Liz Reid on the ACCESS Podcast with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger.
Liz talked a lot about the future of Search. Here are the five most interesting parts.
Will Agents Eventually Do Most Of The Activity On The Web?
Yes, but not all of the interaction. Liz said:
“I certainly think there will be a world where agents are doing a lot of interaction on the internet, not just people. I personally don’t believe in a world where it’s all agents, in the sense that I still think that people sometimes want to hear directly from other people … but, the fact that you can kick off 10 agents and you have limited time and the agents don’t necessarily, I do think that probably means there’s a world in which a lot of agents are talking with each other, and not just with humans going forward as we evolve.”
I thought this was interesting because Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis recently predicted that we would end up with a new model of economics where agents talk to other agents and negotiate things between themselves. He said:
“I think if you follow that through, that does imply a lot of changes to the structure of the web … I think it’s going to be a big disruption.”
Marie’s take: We are starting to see AI agents able to accomplish things we never thought possible. Agents can do coding. In fact, Spotify said that its developers have not handwritten a single line of code since December, thanks to AI. We are starting to see people build agentic systems with OpenClaw. Personally, I have built a few systems, but nothing that I would happily use to replace my own processes … yet! This will change, though, as the models and technology improve. I do believe that we are moving into a new phase of the web where there is more agent activity than human. For more reading, here are my thoughts on how Google’s Agent2Agent protocol will radically change the web.
Will Gemini And Search Eventually Converge To Be One Thing?
Liz said, “I don’t know the answer.” In some areas, Gemini and Search are converging, and in others, diverging. She said that learning how and where to surface links from the web is an area that Google is still very early on and ripe for exploration.
Marie’s take: Google CEO Sundar Pichai told us that AI Mode is where Google tests new AI experiences, and over time, as they see what works, they’ll migrate those to the main Search experience. We’ve recently seen that on mobile, when a user clicks “show more” at the bottom of an AI Overview, they are taken to AI Mode. I find it fascinating how much AI Mode looks like the Gemini app. I think the days of traditional Search are essentially over. People will still use Google to find specific websites, and there will be cases where people truly do want to see content that was created by people. But when people want a quick answer to a question, increasingly the AI Overview gives them that answer.
Liz also suggested a third possibility where it’s not AI Mode or Gemini that takes over, but she said, “And who knows. Maybe agents will mean the right product is neither of the two of them. It’s a third product altogether that they merge into. I don’t know yet.”
Is Google OK With Using AI To Create Content?
Google is perfectly OK with using AI to help you create content. Liz did say that sometimes AI just creates slop, though.
“I do think we have to fight it from the search side of making sure that we get the great content.”
Marie’s take: I think this was the most important thing Liz said about content.
“I also think it’s a time for creators and journalists in different ways to say like, are you producing great content that’s really interesting to people or if you’re creating the same junk a hundred thousand other people are and just hoping your content is going to surface to the top that’s not as good.”
This is a big change for content marketers. I’d challenge you to take your latest blog post and paste it into your favorite LLM and ask, “Is this content truly original and unique or is it simply rephrasing what others have said on the web?”
Personalization Is Going To Play A Bigger Role
Liz talked a lot about Google’s Personal Intelligence. Google wants to surface content from the sites you have a connection with.
This quote was very interesting:
“If you have a cooking subscription with someone can we make sure that those recipes show up even more and that you know you can click through, right? People hate getting links that they get to and they have to bounce back because they can’t get through to the content and they’re not willing to do it. But sometimes those people have decided to pay somebody and not the other six people. Well then we should surface the one that they’re paying for and not the six that they can’t get access to more.”
Marie’s take: I’m not sure specifically what Liz was referring to when she said “cooking subscription.” Was she perhaps referring to established services like HelloFresh, perhaps? Or is she, perhaps, hinting at more monetization options in Search?
This leads me to my final interesting point.
Could Micropayments Become A Thing?
The podcast hosts spoke about how some content on the web is paywalled. Liz hinted that perhaps one day we will have a system that makes it easier for searchers to pay for access to specific pieces of content rather than full subscriptions. She said:
“Micropayments hasn’t really ever taken off but maybe that will change over time. But I think there is an opportunity to make, with personalization, not to do just personalization with sort of small ranking twiddling, but really strengthen, these are the people you trust from, let’s make it easy for you with AI to access that information.”
Marie’s take: I think there are loads of opportunities on the horizon in this area. Last year, Google announced AP2, the Agents Payments Protocol, which will let agents transact with each other. I think the day will come when those who create content that people seek out and consume will have a new income stream somehow.
More Resources:
- AI Has Changed How Search Works
- Well-Known SEO Explains Why AI Agents Are Coming For You & What To Do Now
- Google’s Old Search Era Is Over – Here’s What 2026 SEO Will Really Look Like
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