The stated reason, that free Google search now is an AI product, is technically correct. I hear that's the best kind of correct.
But if I had the option of a separate search product that didn't involve AI, I would be very interested in using it. I'd rather have more control over whether AI is involved in a search or not. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm an outlier. But I think it's a pretty good hypothesis that Google won't decouple search from AI because they think it might be too popular.
I don't have inside knowledge, but I'd be willing to bet that search without the LLM summary still involves plenty of non-LLM ML models along the way, classifying and pattern matching. “No LLM summaries” would be a tractable request; “no AI” would not be.
Why is that?
Of my recent searches, I’m either 1) just clicking the top link anyways as I was searching for the exact #1 result and need their website, not info. Or 2)searching for a quick snippet of info where the AI summary is sufficient, like a cooking measurement conversion.
What’s your usage where AI in the results is an issue that AI-free results are better?