Google Search Now Has AI Agents, What It Means for Your Business

THE CONTEXT

Google Search now has AI Agents.

Not just an AI Overview answering your question, but something that works in the background, tracks things for you, and can even call a business on your behalf.

This piece of information might seem new to some of you. It is not entirely new. The foundation was laid at the beginning of May 2024, when Google started using generative AI in Search. What you are witnessing is the fruit of that beginning.

The other thing that might surprise you is that it has been going on for more than two years. The changes were gradual, and most of us failed to realize how much was transformed in such a short time.

That is why this blog was written. It aims to raise awareness about recent developments and innovations in the field. Some business owners still do not know what changes have taken place because they did not notice them. They use the search engine on a regular basis and thought nothing had changed.

Therefore, The Brihaspati Infotech through this post wants to provide an overview of what has happened so far. It will also assist you in better comprehending what the future holds and what transformations await the search engine.

WHERE IT STARTED

What did Google actually announced?

In May 2024, Google launched the so-called Generative AI in Search, representing a fundamental change in the way the search results work.

The main difference is that now a special Gemini model works in the search results, which has several important features that standard search engines do not have:

In short, Search stopped being a place where you type a query and scroll. It became a place that does some of the thinking for you.

THE OLD WAY V/S THE NEW ONE

How is this different from a regular search result?

Good question, and worth slowing down on.

Consider the last time you searched for a product review, say, the best laptop for video editing. Previously, Google would have returned ten results, leaving it up to you to travel through the various opinions and, eventually, reach a conclusion. You might have clicked through a couple of articles, examined a review site’s take, read through a forum post, and consulted a retailer’s page.

Perhaps you’ve even synthesized the information from multiple sources in order to determine which laptop to buy. This is the exact problem that Google Search aims to solve by doing some of this work for you.

That entire process is what changed.

Here’s how that works in practice: Rather than ten disparate articles to read and synthesize, Search goes through them for you, extracting the most pertinent information and presenting it to you in a concise summary before moving on to the original sources. If the summary contains all the information you need, you can stop right there. If not, you can find the links to the original articles placed conveniently right below the summary.

So while the overall experience is similar, there’s one major difference: The AI-generated summary that gives you a quick overview of the topic. That’s not a bad thing — far from it, in fact. But it does change the game for both users and businesses.

That’s why the new Google search isn’t about choice between AI or links. It’s about choice within and beyond AI. In the end, both options are available, but the AI-generated summary determines the first impression anyone searching for a particular term will get, and for many, that is the only impression that will matter.

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE FEATURES

What can Search do now that it couldn’t before?

A handful of things, honestly. Let’s break them down one at a time.

Taken together, these weren’t just enhancements to the old Search. They represented a fundamentally different approach to searching. And it wasn’t the end of the line for evolution.

STRAIGHT FROM GOOGLE, NOT A GUESS

The numbers, at a glance

This is the part that people often don’t consider. While you can be tempted to see AI Overviews as “that experiment Google did some time ago,” Google’s own reports tell a different story

This is not an evolutionary step, but a revolutionary one, replacing the way people search in under two years, from an independent source.

And there’s a part that directly impacts businesses. By enabling this AI-powered search replacement, Google caused some sites to lose out on a notable percentage of traffic, as the AI simply answers questions before they reach the destination. At the same time, however, businesses that were able to adapt to the changes continued to thrive, as they were still being cited.

This is a part of history that defines the difference between companies that continue to exist and flourish, and those that failed to adapt, and consequently, vanished.

IT DIDN’T STOP AT ANSWERS

From answering questions to acting on them: where Search is headed now

Here’s what ties it all back together, and why it’s no less important than the points above. AI Overviews represent the beginning of the end. Not the conclusion.

I/O 2026 shows us Google has gone beyond answering questions with AI to actually building agents into Search. Not the kind of “AI” you’re used to seeing in this space, but something much more proactive, existing in the background and working tirelessly on your behalf.

A few examples of what these agents actually do:

In other words, the same evolution that began with the release of AI Overviews in 2024 has expanded far beyond simple answers and now entails Search being able to take action on your behalf.

Which brings us back to the point. In many ways, this is an even bigger deal for a business than the changes outlined above. An agent taking action on your behalf still requires accurate hours, a working phone number, and detailed service information, the same kinds of data that AI Overviews needed in order to function reliably. The presentation has changed, but the expectation remains the same.

THE REAL SHIFT, BEYOND RANKINGS

Why should a business care about this?

This is the paragraph most business owners will scroll past. Understandably so: it sounds like another Google update, and Google updates itself constantly.

But this one’s different. And here’s why.

The fact that Search begins to summarize certain answers rather than following links means that a specific algorithm takes into account which particular business or service to pick as a source of information for its summary. Some businesses will be left out, and some will not.

So the real insight here isn’t about ranking anymore. Ranking was always about position on a page. That much is obvious: the new algorithm does not deal specifically with rankings. Rather, it has to do with the AI’s understanding of the particular business and its ability to recognize and trust it as a source of information.

Think of it this way:

If your information is out-of-date, vague, or spread out over five separate and slightly conflicting places, the AI has less reason to use you as its source of knowledge. That’s a fact.

And this updating occurs not once a year, but nearly every day, in smaller more incremental bits. A business that anticipates this change maintains relevance. One that doesn’t, slowly loses it without regaining it.

THE GOOD NEWS IN ALL OF THIS

What does The Brihaspati Infotech do about it?

Here’s the good news. None of the above requires you to start from square one.

The majority of businesses typically tend to have the relevant data about their hours, services, pricing, and locations somewhere in their inventory. The common issue arises when this information is not entirely consistent or specific enough across all the required fields in the manner search engines expect it to be.

The Brihaspati Infotech AI Readines Audit helps you identify what precisely you may lack from the perspective of an AI.

The second phase of preparation then focuses on building the missing content and improving the quality of the existing content. This is where most businesses see an immediate benefit. With the right guidance, a business becomes able to make the most of the Search presence it has at any given moment.

In the long term, this creates a sustainable strategy of continuous improvement. While Google indeed tends to update its algorithms in unpredictable ways, with The Brihaspati Infotech, any given business will consistently build on its past performance rather than having to scramble to keep up with an ever-changing set of requirements.

Disclaimer: References to third-party products or companies are informational and do not imply affiliation, association, endorsement or partnership.