The end of the internet's golden age

Google's overhaul of the search bar washes away one of the last vestiges of the internet's halcyon era—when search tools felt empowering, social media and swiping were novel, and popular disillusionment had yet to set in. The AI era and the TikTok-ification of social media have produced a digital world that's responsive to the market demands of today and unrecognizable from a decade ago. Google acknowledged that search was a model of the past and that its core product had to be more aligned with the AI age.