Google Releases an Underwhelming Set of Agentic Updates

In an update that left me a little underwhelmed (mostly because this was some retread stuff they had either teased or demoed before at Google I/O), Google has released some AI shopping updates this week. Here’s what was announced.

First, the launched an AI tool which will help you click and call stores on your behalf and then return the results to you.

Second, Google seems to have added an AI followup mode onto Google Shopping which lets you use conversational search to narrow down what you are looking for.

Third, Google reported that there will be sponsored listings in search results. Yippee. Just what I was waiting for from the incumbent.

Look, can I rant for a second? No one answers the phone anymore Google. I swear I can’t get anyone in the United States to answer the phone. Certainly not at a business. And when I am in any business in person, I just watch as the phone rings and no one even knows or cares how to answer it. This first feature seems useless in the extreme.

Also, Google Shopping is not going to be winning Google any awards anytime soon. Sponsored listings? Seems like a world without enshittified results lasted about 5 minutes.

All told, I see Google suffering from a severe case of innovator’s dilemma. OpenAI has, well, an opening here. And they are going to keep driving through it. It may take time, but it feels to me like Google is not meeting the moment.

The bigger question is, will it matter at all. Distribution is still the most important thing on the Internet because it’s built on network effects. And while OpenAI is pretty decent, it’s not going to replace Google for everything because Google is so damn fast at producing results for a lot of things. And they have a ton of proprietary datasets that OpenAI simply does not have. Google Maps is a great example of this. And uh, hello Android and Chrome. Despite popular reports, the browser wars are not (I repeat NOT) heating up. Last I checked, Chrome still has 70% marketshare.

Very early innings but the average user simply does not ever switch something core like a browser.

While that doesn’t mean people can’t just use it to access ChatGPT, it also means that Google isn’t going anywhere for a while either — especially if they finally get smart and start to disrupt themselves.