Google is updating its ubiquitous search engine with the next generation of its artificial intelligence technology as part of an effort to provide instant expertise amid intensifying competition from smaller competitors.

The company announced Wednesday that it will feed its Gemini 2.0 AI model into its search engine so it can field more complex questions involving subjects such as computer coding and math.

As has been the case since last May, the AI-generated overviews will be placed above the traditional web links that have become the lifeblood of online publishers dependent on traffic referrals from Google's dominant search engine.

Google is broadening the audience for AI overviews in the U.S. by making them available to teenage searchers without requiring them to go through a special sign-in process to see them.

The stage is also being set for what could turn out to be one of the most dramatic changes to the search engine's interface since Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin started the company in a Silicon Valley garage during the late 1990s.

Google is going to begin a gradual rollout of an "AI mode" option that will result in the search engine generating even more AI overviews. When search is in AI mode, Google is warning the overviews are likely to become more conversational and sometimes head down online corridors that result in falsehoods that the tech industry euphemistically calls "hallucinations."

"As with any early-stage AI product, we won't always get it right," Google product vice president Robby Stein wrote in a blog post that also acknowledged the possibility "that some responses may unintentionally appear to take on a persona or reflect a particular opinion."

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