• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

Has Google Already Won the A.I. Race?

The full-scale rollout of Google’s newish A.I.-assisted search feature raises more questions than answers—but it also underscores the tech giant’s extraordinary advantages at a time when other hyperscalers haven’t addressed consumer skepticism about chatbots.

Sundar Pichai
Concerningly for Google’s hyperscaler competitors, users seem to be largely embracing its A.I. features: According to the company, A.I. Mode has racked up a billion monthly users since its rollout last year, A.I. Overviews fields about 2.5 billion monthly users, and the Gemini app has just shy of a billion. Photo: Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images
Ian Krietzberg
May 26, 2026

Join Puck to listen to this article

Last year at Google I/O, the company’s annual developer conference, C.E.O. Sundar Pichai stood before the crowd and heralded a “total reimagining of Search” with the introduction of Google’s A.I. Mode. This year, he declared that Search is “bringing the benefits of generative A.I. to more people than any product in the world.” He called A.I. Mode a “revelation,” described the impending A.I.-powered “transformation” of Search as “our ultimate moonshot,” and announced that we’ve entered the company’s “agentic era.”