The Shoreline Amphitheatre on 19 and 20 May 2026 hosted the (yearly) Google IO conference 2026 devoted to the latest developments and near future plans of the company on a variety of subjects.
All keynote contributions are online. Amongst the more interesting IMHO are Google AI, building agents with Gemini API, and especially Google Search I/O updates on AI agents and more by Elisabeth Reid: “The best of a search engine with the best of AI“. Google search will see very large changes, the biggest ones since its existence. The concern is that Google search as we know it today will disappear during this year and will almost be replaced by AI.
A quick summary (Google blog):
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A new AI-powered Search experience that combines the strengths of traditional search with Gemini AI.
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An Intelligent Search Box, capable of understanding:
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natural language
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images
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files
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videos
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even Chrome tabs as search inputs.
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AI Agents that can carry out tasks on behalf of the user, such as researching options or helping complete multi-step activities.
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AI Mode, which had already grown to over 1 billion monthly users, receiving major upgrades for deeper and more conversational search.
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Continued support for traditional web results alongside AI-generated responses, rather than replacing them entirely.
It may all change the way OSINT investigators search, work, investigate, find and access primary sources on the internet.
