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Performance Marketing

How Google Is Changing Search with Project Magi

May 16, 2023 | by Alyssa Ruiz
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For years, Google (and its parent company, Alphabet) have been developing powerful AI tools built on...

For years, Google (and its parent company, Alphabet) have been developing powerful AI tools built on large language models, which process enormous amounts of data to understand and generate natural language text at scale. Until recently, Google kept its research under wraps. All that changed when Microsoft adopted OpenAI’s large language model to augment its Bing search engine with a chatbot — which challenged Google’s core search business. As a result, Google is accelerating its adoption of AI to change how people use search. For example, Google rushed to market its Bard conversational chatbot earlier in 2023, which will change both paid and organic search, as we discussed on our blog.  In addition, Google is reportedly in the midst of making a larger-scale adoption of AI in search through Project Magic. Let’s take a closer look. 

What Is Project Magi? 

As reported in The New York Times, Project Magi is a Google code name for a project to unveil a new search experience powered by artificial intelligence. The project is still in its early stages, but it is expected to be released in the next few years. Project Magi is expected to offer a number of advantages over the current Google search engine. It is expected to be more personalized, more accurate, and more relevant to users’ needs. It is also expected to be more conversational, and it will be able to answer users’ questions in a more natural way. Its outcomes will include: 

  • Personalization: AI will personalize search results more so than Google Search does now. Users will see results that are more relevant to their interests and needs. 
  • Conversational: Project Magi will use AI to make search results more conversational. This means that users will be able to interact with search results in a more natural way as they are doing with Bard. 

According to the New York Times, the new search experience “would learn what users want to know based on what they’re searching when they begin using it. And it would offer lists of preselected options for objects to buy, information to research, and more. It would also be more conversational — a bit like chatting with a helpful person.”  

In addition, reinventing search “would keep ads in the mix of search results. Search queries that could lead to a financial transaction, such as buying shoes or booking a flight, for example, would still feature ads on their results pages.” 

This development is significant because some experts believe that conversational AI could pose a threat to Google Search. This is due to the fact that conversational AI provides a single answer that combines information, which could change how Google Search delivers answers with links to information. Currently, Bard does not have ads on its interface. However, it could incorporate ads in several ways, such as providing links for additional information alongside ads, sponsored chatbot responses (which Snapchat is incorporating in its app), and other advertising interfaces. Ads generated $225 billion for Google in 2022. 

Why Is Google Reinventing Search with Project Magi? 

Google is under tremendous pressure to respond to the adoption of AI by Microsoft and OpenAI. Notably, Samsung recently said it was considering replacing Google with Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine on its devices. An estimated $3 billion in annual revenue was at stake with the Samsung contract. This alone was enough to force Google to accelerate its AI adoption. 

How Will Project Magi Change How Businesses Work with Google? 

It is likely that this heightened level of personalization in search results and the incorporation of conversational AI will challenge businesses to create more conversational and personal content (both paid and organic). For instance, businesses might need to publish: 

  • Hyper-targeted content and conversational ads to be relevant to the more precise, conversational, and personalized search results that Google envisions. 

  • Content in a more conversational style on their websites, Google Business Profiles, and other content touch points befitting the way search is becoming more conversational. 

Our recently published blog post, “How AI Will Impact Paid Search,” contains more insight.  

What Steps Should I Take? 

As noted in our blog post, we recommend that businesses become more immersed in large language models such as ChatGPT but not without doing homework into their shortcomings, which include risks for data privacy violations. Proceed – but carefully.  

Contact IDX

To learn more about how IDX can help you navigate these changes, optimize your paid search campaigns, and stay up to date on the latest in AI, check out our paid media services or reach out to our team today.