Gen Z started using AI for their web searches

Considered for a long time the main and most heterogeneous source of information on the Internet, as well as the first point of access for millions of people, websites have gradually lost their centrality and relevance, in the face of the success of platforms. Part of this evolution is sometimes described as one of the effects of the transition to Web 2.0, a specific model of the Internet based on features that have made interaction between users and content sharing easier. However, this has led to a growing dependence on the services of large platforms, coupled with greater homogenization of the content available online. The experience of the Internet, increasingly mediated by a few players, on one hand, has expanded the availability of users' personal data – encouraging advertising revenues – and, on the other hand, has led to a depletion of the information distributed through traditional search engines.

With the spread of social networks and their respective apps, a significant part of the ways content is produced and consumed has changed, as well as its format. Upon closer inspection, even the expression “browsing the Internet” has now become quite outdated. Today, much of the information online lives and develops within the feeds of individual platforms, rather than on websites traceable via classic search engines. According to experts, this change is probably one of the reasons why many users – especially older ones – now perceive their online experience as impoverished, despite the increase in consumption possibilities over time. “Googling has become an activity for old people”, wrote the Wall Street Journal, and “this is a problem” for the company. According to computer expert Jason Velazquez, by entrusting the discovery of new content to the algorithms of individual platforms, most users – especially younger ones – have practically replaced their online searches with social network feeds. These platforms are also designed to identify users' interests, so they propose more and more content of that type – uninterrupted, in a potentially infinite cycle of posts known as “doomscrolling.”

What no longer convinces about web searches

In the vast debate about the evolution of the Internet, many argue that the most used search engine in the world has lost its ability over time to offer users relevant content, due to the growing share of advertisements and results that are largely the same as each other. Part of the issue – already the subject of many reflections started several years ago – concerns particularly how many of the contents displayed on the first page of a search engine provide genuinely useful information, and how many are the result of competition among authors to dominate a particular semantic search – gaining more visibility, and therefore greater revenue. More and more often, the proposed contents tend to be similar to each other because those who produce them try to follow as much as possible the technical recommendations suggested by SEO.

In many areas – such as health, product reviews, or recipe searches – the first results shown (excluding sponsored pages) are websites blatantly optimized for search engines, which in turn are full of advertisements. But the company's algorithms remain largely a trade secret, designed to prevent malicious parties from circumventing them for their own benefit. The result is that figuring out what type of information is rewarded by search engines is largely a task of conjectures and trial and error. “There are a bunch of people whose only goal is to reach the top of search results, so it shouldn't be surprising that the quality of search results has worsened”, wrote computer expert Dmitri Brereton. The growing awareness among users of the current limitations of traditional search engines is also influencing their own searches. These are no longer “blind”: over time, they have become more specific, even somewhat unconsciously by users, who are able to get more relevant results. However, there is an increasing number of users – especially younger ones – who prefer to conduct online searches directly within the platforms they frequent regularly. For example, to find out the dates of an artist's tour, it can be much more practical and quicker to consult their Instagram account, rather than search online and filter the results.