AI Agents May End Search As We Know It
When the World Wide Web first appeared, it was compared to a library without shelves, where all the books lay scattered on a basement floor. For over two decades, search engines have served as ubiquitous routers directing billions of clickers through the labyrinth of the internet.
But that era is officially ending. At Google’s 2025 I/O conference, the company unveiled a future where AI agents, not search results, will act as the new custodians of the web. No more sifting through pages or gaming results. Instead, these agents promise to fetch answers, shop for deals and even draft research papers.
This shift signals two concurrent trends that business leaders can’t afford to ignore: a new battleground for brand visibility and a growing dependence on agentic systems for customer interaction.
From Links To Living Assistants
The star of the I/O 2025 event wasn’t a new gadget or algorithm tweak; it was the quiet rise of AI agents, tools designed to erase the friction between users and information. The message was clear: Search, in its traditional form, is obsolete.
The most significant announcement was the rollout of AI Mode, a feature that allows users to converse directly with an AI assistant within Google Search. Instead of scrolling through links, users can now ask the agent to summarize articles, compare products or compile travel itineraries.
The ChatGPT Hangover Effect
This seismic shift didn’t happen overnight. It was catalyzed by the rise of ChatGPT, which showed limitations to the search-first approach. When OpenAI’s generative AI tool (chatbot) demonstrated that users preferred conversational answers over link lists, search engines scrambled to adapt.
Last year’s rollout of AI Overviews—a feature that placed AI-generated summaries atop search results—was a tentative first step for Google. But its launch faltered when the system “hallucinated” absurd answers, like recommending glue on pizza to make the cheese stick, claiming Barack Obama was the first Muslim president and suggesting that users eat at least one small rock per day.
A year later, Google has refined its strategy. Rather than tacking AI onto search, it’s rebuilding the entire experience around agentic AI. That should prompt leaders to ask: Is your digital infrastructure agent-ready?
In support of this, Google announced native SDK support for Anthropic’s MCP, a protocol that lets AI agents securely access data across apps and websites. The move aligns with broader industry trends: Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott recently championed an “open agentic web,” where AI tools seamlessly interact with services, from hailing Uber to managing finances.
Winners, Losers And Unanswered Questions
The implications of this shift are profound and uneven. For online services like DoorDash or Ticketmaster, AI agents represent a golden opportunity. These platforms are already optimizing their systems for AI interactions, eager to serve users through automated assistants. A customer asking Gemini to “order my usual lunch” could trigger a DoorDash order without needing to open the app.
Publishers, however, face existential threats. When AI agents summarize news articles or research papers, readers have little incentive to click through to the source. Traffic and its associated ad revenue may drop. For media companies, that kind of efficiency becomes a big problem.
Outlets like The New York Times and Reuters have put up paywalls and made licensing deals, but the long-term viability of these purveyors of truth, backed by full-time fact-checkers, is worrisome, to say the least.
Then there’s the nagging hallucination issue. Despite advancements, AI agents still invent facts or misrepresent sources. Until these gaps close, the risk of misinformation looms large.
Imagine an AI agent citing a fake clinical study or misidentifying a patient’s diagnosis. Notably, the recent “Make America Healthy Again” report from HHS cited sources in the appendix that didn’t exist. This is widely believed to be because the report likely over-relied on AI. Especially for leaders in regulated industries like healthcare, finance and legal—the reputational and compliance risks of AI-generated misinformation can be high.
AI Security Risks Borne By Users
AI agents can usher in a host of security concerns as well, something that’s been well documented. Agentic AI can be utilized by threat actors to automate social engineering attacks, reaching thousands of users simultaneously. Prompt injection attacks can manipulate LLMs, seeding malware in the process.
Human defenses are needed to thwart AI-fueled spearphishing campaigns, the main vector for system infiltration. The need for human risk management grows apparent. Human risk management (HRM) is a data-driven approach that aligns with traditional security awareness training but also focuses more broadly on quantifying and mitigating risks associated with human behavior. The idea is to transform employees into a strong layer of defense through personalized, adaptive learning and fostering a culture that is security resilient.
We Stand At A Crossroads
The promise of agentic AI is seductive: a world where tedious tasks vanish, research takes minutes, and education is frictionless. Yet, we risk trading serendipity and depth for convenience, empowering algorithms to curate reality on our behalf. We risk the human talent for critical thinking by outsourcing it to a black box. The way many see dashboard and phone-based GPS systems has turned us into more careless drivers, and agentic AI could make us less consciously mindful and maybe less intuitive.
But despite flaws, AI agents are here to stay and evolve. I am certain other competitive search engines will follow suit with their own AI mega-assistants. The question is how the choices executives make today—about partnerships, data access, transparency, and customer experience—will shape the AI agent ecosystem for years to come.
Regulations ensuring things like transparency, cybersecurity safeguards, fair compensation for creators and rigorous AI accountability will be critical. So, too, will preserving spaces for human intuition and curiosity—the messy, exploratory web journeys that algorithms can’t replicate. The age of search taught us to navigate the internet. The age of agents will test whether we can still navigate ourselves.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2025/07/29/ai-agents-may-end-search-as-we-know-it/
