Why Use AI When You Can Just Google It?

When the same question keeps coming up in conversations about my work, I take that as a sign that it’s worth grappling with and answering. Lately, that question has been “why use AI when you can just Google it?” ​​In my experience, this question usually comes from one of two groups: people who do not really use large language models like Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT—or people who do use them, but primarily as a stand-in for Google. So, I’m writing something that I hope will capture some of the nuances of these tools’ capabilities. While they do have some functional overlap, Google is not a perfect substitute for AI.