Technology is advancing at such a rapid pace that every few years our lives are being completely transformed by it. Gone are the days when computers could understand only command line instructions. Now computer programs can understand and analyze your behavior, and even recommend products that are perfectly suited for you. Some computer applications can even mimic rudimentary neural networks and human decision processes. No other generation has seen so many technological advances as ours and no one can accurately predict what the future will look like. With technology transforming our lives every few years, what will Google Search – the most advanced search engine on the planet, look like 10 years down the line?
Google set the standard with its innovative search engine algorithms way back in the early 90s. Google Search was the only search engine to consider the relationship between web pages and not just the number of times the search phrase appeared in a web page. The search engine is so popular that the word “google” has even become a verb. Constant innovations at Google have allowed the company to stay ahead of its competitors and dominate the Internet-related services market. In this video, Matt Cutts – head of the Google Webspam team and one of the most important guys behind updating Google search algorithms, talks about what he thinks or hopes Google Search will be like in 10 years.
Google will be able to understand what you are saying
Although Matt thinks that the search engine may not be fully artificially intelligent a decade from now, it will become more of an assistant than a mere search engine. People will be able to conduct searches using multi-mobile input instead of just typing in keywords in the search bar. He thinks that we may be able to use microphones, Google glasses, smartphones, voice input devices and many other sensors to conduct searches on Google anytime we want giving us a full augmented reality experience.
Matt even thinks that there is a possibility of a brain-computer interface with Google Search in the near future where we would be able to send commands to the search engine with our thoughts. Currently, users can conduct searches by typing in keywords and in the future Matt predicts that Google Search would have full voice recognition capability and will be able to understand the context of the searches. It may even be able to analyze past searches so that it can return accurate search results even when the search phrases are not clear or if some words are missing.
Google will get better at helping you find information
Matt also predicts that Google will be able to synthesize or fuse information from different sources and return accurate content and not just links to websites in search results. We are already seeing this being done by the Google Knowledge Graph and this technology could become much more intuitive and intelligent in the future.
He also hopes that Google will become the perfect assistant in the sense that it will help find information even without the person having to type in keywords. For example, if a person is going past a store and he/she has a grocery list prepared, then Google Search should be able to – in the near future – find information about the store and see whether the items on the grocery list are available in the store and then prompt the person with this information. Google may be able to anticipate the needs of the person and present relevant information in an unobtrusive way even before being asked to do so. Watch this video to know what Matt thinks the Google Search will look like in a decade.