This week Jason Howell and Jeff Jarvis sit down with Liz Reid, VP and Head of Google Search, for a wide-ranging conversation about AI's transformation of the search product billions of people use every day. Liz makes the case that personalization could actually help small publishers find their exact audience rather than making them invisible, explains what the "ignore" bug revealed about how AI Overviews work under the hood, and talks about why users are adapting to natural language search faster than Google expected. Also in this episode: how preferred sources and subscriptions fit into AI search, Jeff challenges Liz on filter bubbles, and Liz's take on whether "search" is even the right word anymore. New episodes every Wednesday at aiinside.show.
Note: Time codes subject to change depending on dynamic ad insertion by the distributor.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 - Start
0:09:41 - Personalization is something no one else is asking about
0:21:56 - Publisher concerns
0:26:31 - How do publishers verify that personalization is finding them the right audience?
0:28:33 - Filter bubbles
0:32:04 - Searching with Agents: is there a new verb for search?
0:35:57 - Liz's jobs, metrics, success, failure
0:40:13 - Where were you when you found out that searching the word ‘ignore’ broke AI Overviews, and what was your first reaction?
Hosts: Jason Howell and Jeff Jarvis Guest: Liz Reid
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00:00:00:02 - 00:00:19:01
Unknown
Sometimes people, they'll add a paywall and then they'll say, my traffic's down. And you're like, yes, yes, that is what will happen if you charge.
00:00:19:03 - 00:00:36:11
Unknown
Hello everybody, and welcome to AI. Inside. This is a show where we take a look at the AI that is layered throughout the world. The technology I'm one of your hosts, Jason Howell. My co-host Jeff Jarvis is with me today. He'll be here for the interview. And boy, do we have a special interview for you today. Been looking forward to this immensely.
00:00:36:11 - 00:00:57:29
Unknown
Our guest is Liz Reid, who's been at Google for 23 years. She was one of the first female engineers in Google's New York office, actually spent 17 years building Google Maps. And today she runs Google Search. Billions of people using the product that she runs every single day. Pretty important person doing pretty important stuff behind the scenes at Google now.
00:00:57:29 - 00:01:27:09
Unknown
Right now, that product search is going through the biggest transformation that it's seen since the introduction of the search box. And actually last month I was a mountain view for Google. I o they mentioned that AI mode hit a billion monthly users, people more and more, apparently treating the search box like it's a conversational interaction. And Liz actually says in our interview that people are adapting to that faster than even she expected.
00:01:27:09 - 00:01:52:26
Unknown
And she shares a few key reasons as far as why she thinks that is. We also dive deep into the personalization of search. A lot of like the personal intelligence features coming into search. And Liz actually makes the case that integrating your personal data into search, your emails, your maps, history, calendar, all that kind of stuff could actually be the thing that helps small publishers instead of hurting them.
00:01:53:02 - 00:02:16:14
Unknown
Publishers will want to hear that. She also has a pretty direct take on paywalls that I'm guessing some publishers won't love to hear. She flips the filter bubble argument upside down. Jeff asked her about this, and she argues that not personalizing search actually creates more filter bubbles, because people just go straight to the one source that they already know.
00:02:16:14 - 00:02:38:19
Unknown
And she's honest about how early all this stuff really is, how they at Google are still figuring out how to deliver the proper metrics that publishers are looking for, and I even asked her where she was when the word ignore or broke AI overviews just a few weeks back, she walks us through what it's like when something big like that happens so suddenly.
00:02:38:19 - 00:02:45:24
Unknown
So we got a lot of ground to cover. Let's get into it. Here's our fantastic conversation with Liz Reed.
00:02:45:26 - 00:03:05:05
Unknown
Welcome to AI inside. Liz, it is so great to have you here, Liz. Read from from Google, the search team and a name that everyone that watches the show is very familiar with. Thank you for being here with us today. Yeah, it's it's super cool to get to check in with folks at Google.
00:03:05:05 - 00:03:40:17
Unknown
And we're just really appreciate appreciative of your time, especially because this is such a such an important moment for not only not only just technology at large, but clearly artificial intelligence is such a huge, you know, moment that's happening in tech right now. But beyond that, I mean, you work so closely as you do with the search product, and we're going to talk a lot about that today and how how all of these technologies kind of coming together is really in some ways reshaping in many ways reshaping what Google has done with its primary product of search.
00:03:40:17 - 00:04:01:24
Unknown
But you being the person who really gets to kind of make these changes to the search box, this thing that is so iconic and integral to what Google has done over the last few decades, what does it feel like to be in that position from from the inside, having having your fingers on kind of that kind of change?
00:04:01:24 - 00:04:04:24
Unknown
It's a big deal.
00:04:04:26 - 00:05:26:21
Unknown
Very exciting and very humble.
00:05:26:24 - 00:05:52:18
Unknown
But, you know, in the field of.
00:05:52:20 - 00:06:18:29
Unknown
Some level, you know, I think it's.
00:06:19:01 - 00:06:23:24
Unknown
Like that and.
00:06:23:26 - 00:06:38:14
Unknown
And, and I think that's really exciting in that both there's a set of rules that you would go to the a question we that.
00:06:38:17 - 00:07:11:01
Unknown
Nobody actually does really want to hold the rest of us, the New York. Right. Like they have a very.
00:07:11:04 - 00:09:03:26
Unknown
Is that they have all the people that.
00:09:03:29 - 00:09:22:06
Unknown
We also feel that that that.
00:09:22:08 - 00:09:28:21
Unknown
Is more about better or. You.
00:09:28:24 - 00:09:43:26
Unknown
Know, we do have the overlap in.
00:09:43:29 - 00:10:10:11
Unknown
Yeah. You know, personalization has been a big and a very recent kind of priority, from what I've noticed of Google's kind of roll outs and personal intelligence and everything. Now we've got that kind of coming into search. I mean, search really is becoming kind of the Swiss army knife of a lot of the different technologies. They eventually make their way into search and start sort of superpower kind of how the search product actually works.
00:10:10:12 - 00:12:41:18
Unknown
Right? Not as much the the blue links anymore. It's very dynamic at this point. I'm curious to kind of here with the kind of more recent integration of personalization into search, how users, how you've seen users actually kind of pushing this to the limits and testing this and kind of representing the best of what that personalization can actually do to the search experience that we didn't have the ability to do a couple of years ago when it was, you know, just a little bit more of the Blue Links experience.
00:12:41:20 - 00:13:06:27
Unknown
Okay. So then you've got that that kind of extra context and, and that's super powerful. What will come up probably a couple of times throughout the course of this interview is, is the side of the publishers, of course, because there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of publishers that look at the search product and what they've been used to, that search product being and watching it transform and change and kind of uncertain about like what what does this mean for us sort of thing.
00:13:07:00 - 00:20:53:00
Unknown
Does the personalization, does that personal intelligence information kind of change the math when it relates to the publishers? Because some of them kind of think that some of these changes might make them more invisible to search than they were prior to those technologies existing. How does that impact that?
00:20:53:02 - 00:21:16:01
Unknown
Hey everybody, buddy in here. Just real quick, fascinating conversation. We're going to get back to it. But I do want to throw a huge thank you to those who support us on Patreon. Because without Patreon, you know, we really couldn't do these interviews. You guys, you support us on a deep level, and it's just the driver of everything that Jeff and I do here with AI inside.
00:21:16:01 - 00:21:34:13
Unknown
Want to throw out a huge thank you to Chris Spackman, Steven Kimbra, just two of our amazing patrons who help us do this show each and every month just by supporting us on a deeper level. They get access to the AI Inside Daily podcast, which you get if you're a patron and all sorts of other stuff discord, ad free, you name it.
00:21:34:13 - 00:21:54:12
Unknown
So anyways, patrons, thank you so much for supporting us. Thank you for being there for us as we develop this show even further and get amazing guests like Liz Reed, who we will talk to in a moment. But we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about what publishers can actually do to make their content more visible to AI mode.
00:21:54:12 - 00:21:56:25
Unknown
That's coming up in a moment.
00:21:56:27 - 00:26:33:06
Unknown
What can what can publishers do or creators do to make their content more visible to AI? If this is something, if this is kind of the new direction that all of this is headed, which it clearly is, and publishers are concerned about getting the right eyeballs on their content, how can they work with the system to ensure that they're kind of playing by the new set of rules and getting their content maximized in front of the right places at the right time?
00:26:33:08 - 00:27:22:25
Unknown
So. So when you've got publishers interacting with, well, let me back up, Google you. You recently in the search console broke out kind of AI impressions, which is giving a little bit more kind of clarity on how they're interacting with this. They get impressions, they don't get clicks, which I think publishers are very, very curious about. How how do they verify that things like personalization and these other aspects of the efforts that you're rolling out, how can they verify that the right audience is finding them through these tools?
00:27:22:27 - 00:32:05:28
Unknown
Sure.
00:32:06:01 - 00:32:37:24
Unknown
I'm thinking we can dive in a little bit on agents because the agent side of things is starting to also come over to search, which is interesting and exciting, but also kind of create some real kind of curious directions here. You've said in the past that AI search, that's that search is AI search through and through. When an agent, let's say, calls a salon and books and appointment that agent, nobody's actually searching for anything at that point, right?
00:32:37:24 - 00:32:58:13
Unknown
The agent is kind of doing the bidding for their for them. And I'm kind of I realize I'm kind of lifting this from you, Jeff. So my apologies, but you inspired me when we were chatting about this conversation about a new verb, like we're used to calling search, search. But now search is becoming this entirely new product and or entirely more capabilities anyways.
00:32:58:13 - 00:35:11:27
Unknown
And with agents, it really goes into interesting directions. Is there, you know, is there a new way to describe what search is becoming in this kind of new paradigm? $100 word there, Jeff. You can you can build me later.
00:35:11:29 - 00:35:29:03
Unknown
Here one more time, just a real quick one. I mean mostly quickly anyways, actually it's not really quick, but if you didn't know that we have all of our episodes in video format, you know, now we have a YouTube channel, go to YouTube, search for AI inside, or just find the YouTube channel which is called AI Inside Show.
00:35:29:04 - 00:35:54:28
Unknown
You will see this episode and all of our episodes, all of our interviews and everything in glorious video. And so it's all over there on YouTube, and we also love that you subscribe here and listen. So why not both? Okay, going to take a quick break on the other side of the break, we ask Liz about her day to day, what it's like being Liz Reed at Google, and what she was doing when the ignore bug hit AI mode.
00:35:54:28 - 00:40:14:22
Unknown
Very interesting stuff coming up here in a moment.
00:40:14:24 - 00:40:39:21
Unknown
I am curious because what Jeff was you know, what he was asking the last question was really kind of going in the direction of like, how you do what you do and your perspective and your place inside of Google and everything. It reminded me of the story from a couple of weeks ago, which was the ignore AI overviews story that were ignore got in there and it kind of changed what AI overviews actually was doing.
00:40:39:21 - 00:41:17:28
Unknown
And in my head I was like, yes. And and in my mind I was like, what does Liz Reed do in a situation where you're going about your daily business and suddenly you see this news? Like what? Like what does that look like for you? What is the response like being on the inside to something like that?
00:41:18:00 - 00:42:49:29
Unknown
Of course.
00:42:50:02 - 00:43:08:05
Unknown
And obviously bugs happen. Everything and everything like that. Totally understandable. Something like that was a pretty low impact thing. I mean, maybe a lot of people saw it, but it wasn't the worst outcome in the world. It was just kind of hilarious more than anything. Yeah.
00:43:08:08 - 00:43:11:10
Unknown
Yeah.
00:43:11:12 - 00:43:33:09
Unknown
For sure.
00:43:33:11 - 00:43:52:05
Unknown
Well, we're big fans of the work that you're doing. We talk about Google's many AI products and directions that are happening right now, because you guys are just so incredibly busy. I've, you know, I've met with the team, the Gemini team, a few times before and just been amazed at the rate of progress and the rate of change.
00:43:52:11 - 00:44:09:06
Unknown
You all on the inside having to keep up with that and driving that that change at that rate, because that's the speed that everybody else is working at is just really pretty impressive stuff. And I can't thank you enough for spending some time with me and Jeff and the AI inside audience. Liz, it's been a pleasure talking with you.
00:44:09:06 - 00:44:12:14
Unknown
Thank you.
00:44:12:16 - 00:44:23:20
Unknown
Yeah, we'd love to have you back again soon. We'll put out the invite. Thank you again and keep up the great work. All right. Keep up the great work. We'll talk to you soon.
00:44:23:22 - 00:44:50:09
Unknown
All right, that's the interview. Thanks again to read and everyone at Google for making this happen. And I'm just really excited to continue collaborating with Google to get amazing guests like Liz on the show. Who knows, maybe we'll have her back someday. Don't forget real quick. You know, Jeff is a busy, busy guy. He's always writing things. I always love to talk about it and shine a light on it because he's brilliant at what he does, and I just have a huge amount of respect for him.
00:44:50:09 - 00:45:21:00
Unknown
So go to Jeff Jarvis. Com you can find and preorder Hot Type the book that he has right imminently releasing here very soon. Also the Gutenberg parenthesis magazine the web we weave. It's all there Jeff Jarvis. Com hit our site on the web AI inside show everything you need to know about the show is there. I still need to add the store link here, because if you go to AI inside store, we've got a bunch of things like like hats and stuff for AI inside.
00:45:21:00 - 00:45:40:25
Unknown
So, you know, some of you superfans can go ahead and purchase those. I got to get that on the site, I promise. It's coming soon. But hey, I've been busy, but all of our episodes and everything can be found there. And then finally, of course, Patreon comments inside show. We have some amazing patrons who help us do this show on a regular basis.
00:45:40:27 - 00:46:04:10
Unknown
Pretty much, you know, every month and including our executive producers who get a whole lot of extras, they get all the general swag and everything, but they also get a t shirt. Speaking of swag, anyways, our executive producers are Doctor Do, Jeffrey Marikina Radio Asheville 103.7, Dante, Saint James, Bono, Derek, Jason, I for Jason Brady, Anthony Downs, Mark starker and Karsten.
00:46:04:13 - 00:46:26:24
Unknown
And who knows maybe you to patreon.com inside show. Thank you real quick to to just everyone for supporting everyone for watching and for listening to Victor and Daniel, for helping behind the scenes on all the video support. We couldn't do this without everyone involved. So thank you for your support and we'll see you next time on AI inside.