Google - at its annual I/O conference yesterday - told the world the era of typing keywords into a search box is done.
In a nutshell, Google rebuilt Search around AI. When you type a question today, Google reads the web for you and writes the answer at the top of the page. It lists a few sources underneath. Most people will read the answer and never click through to a website.
The shift sounds incremental until you realise what it does to the way buyers find suppliers, which is to say it changes everything about how your business gets discovered.
Google has reorganised its entire product stack around the idea that agents now do the work that humans used to do in browsers.
Now you're probably thinking, 'so what?'. But the implications for where Google takes search next are huge. Remember, this is Day 1.
Agents could be doing your shopping for you next year. Who will get you the best deal? Bing? Google or maybe even newspapers will launch shopping agents.
Will Google even allow other agents to shop on the platform? You then get into agent discrimination...
Agents might offer you to comment on something when a relevant article comes up. The trigger opportunities are endless.
The new way Google works
You type a full sentence or a paragraph into Google. Something like "we keep losing deals at the demo stage, what should we do".
Google reads the whole web for you and gives you an answer at the top of the page, with a few sources listed underneath. You never click or visit a website. You just read the answer and move on.
This is now switched on by default for most people in the US and rolling out everywhere else. AI Mode now sits above the normal search results - but this is now the norm.
Traditionally, a big change like this would cause a big piece of work in removing the name and email gates from content. But just watch how fast you can react when your business is run on AI as well.
As I said last week, my stack now runs on Claude. To remove PDF gates and makes web changes across all pages would have taken ages and required a developer. Watch here how Claude reacts in three minutes.
Speed is crucial to the changes coming ahead
What Google also did
Launched a faster AI model (Gemini 3.5 Flash) and rebuilt its developer tools around AI agents that write code, build apps and run tasks on their own. It has proposed a new web standard (WebMCP) that lets agents read and act on websites directly.
Software is becoming cheaper to build, so expect more competitors shipping faster. Agents acting on behalf of buyers will start filling out your lead forms and bookings, so your website needs to work for machines too. Switching costs between vendors drop, because rewriting software now takes hours rather than weeks as you can see in the above video.
What this means for your business
Make your business machine ready.
If your website is one of the sources Google quotes in its answer, you get found. If it isn't, you don't. Even people who would have clicked you before will now read the summary and never visit you at all.
The pages that get quoted are the ones that answer a real question clearly, in plain language, on a page anyone can read without filling in a form.
The pages that don't get quoted are the ones full of marketing waffle, the ones hidden behind gated downloads, and the ones written for keyword SEO.
The second thing that changed
Google also launched something called Information Agents. You tell Google a topic you care about. It then watches the whole internet for you, in the background, and pings you when something relevant happens.
So instead of a buyer Googling "sales messaging consultants" on a Tuesday morning, they set up an agent once, and it tells them when someone interesting publishes something or wins an award or releases a piece of research.
It's like a personalised Google News search, but more precise. Or your own newspaper on what you want to know about.
What to do about it
Three things.
- Make sure your top landing pages answer real questions in plain words, with the answer on the page rather than behind a form.
- Put your case studies and customer stories on your website where Google can read them, not behind a download gate.
- Keep publishing your newsletter or your point of view consistently, because that is what gets quoted, indexed and pushed to buyers by agents.
Book the Harnessing AI for Executives workshop with Dan.
A one-day private workshop in London for the leadership team. The whole exec group gets hands-on with Claude: building real workflows for your business, naming and briefing their own agents and making the governance decisions that cannot wait. You leave with a named agent already running, a working exec playbook and a 30-day plan for how this compounds from here.
Book The Stress Test workshop with Dan
An appraisal of your commercial approach and growth blockers from someone who has worked both sides of the table as the FT journalist asking the hard questions and the FTSE buyer hearing the pitches. Accelerate your time to market and to profit with direct feedback that saves months.
