The Death Knell of Digital Search – The New Yorker

Infinite Scroll: The Death Knell of Digital Search

Companies such as Google used to be our portals to the rest of the web. Can the internet as we know it survive when A.I. answers all of our questions?
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By Kyle Chayka, November 9, 2026
You’re reading Infinite Scroll, Kyle Chayka [and his weekly] column on how technology shapes culture.

Lately, I’ve been having trouble finding stuff in my Gmail inbox. The Search function has become overzealous, jumping to summarize my conversations using artificial intelligence and skipping the actual addresses I’m attempting to search. It’s not just e-mail accounts, though; search is in crisis everywhere. Google Maps guesses where I want to go at a given time of day instead of simply listing places I’ve just searched for. When I try to use Google Search, the A.I.-overview function sometimes occupies my entire browser window, generating its own, not always correct, answers rather than directing me to relevant websites. Full-on A.I. mode skips the old blue links entirely.

Continue/Read Original Article: The Death Knell of Digital Search | The New Yorker