In the future, people will form emotional connections with Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs, predicted Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday on the sidelines of the developers' conference Google I/O. "It will be a very powerful technology," said Pichai. He emphasized the need to prepare for these developments and to mitigate any possible negative consequences.

During a Q&A session, Pichai was asked about the 2013 film "Her," in which the protagonist falls in love with AI software. This movie was recently compared to a new version of the rival chatbot ChatGPT, which caused quite a stir just a day before Google's AI announcements. Pichai stated that one day's difference in AI development does not matter and described AI as one of the most profound technologies humanity has ever worked on.

At the conference, Google announced various AI innovations, including improvements to the search engine that dominates the market. In the USA and soon in other countries as well, many search queries will now display an AI-generated summary with source references before the usual web links. This is causing concern among website operators that fewer users may reach their sites via the search engine.

Liz Reid, responsible Google manager, responded to these concerns. She explained that the AI summaries would encourage users to make more search queries. "They come with new types of questions, they come with more questions," said Reid. The websites mentioned in the AI summaries would receive more traffic than through the traditional blue links in the search results.

These Innovations Could Also Have Consequences for Google's Business Model, as the Corporation Earns Significant Income From Advertisers Who Pay for Their Web Links in Search Results. Reid Downplayed the Risk and Emphasized that Google Still Wants to Place Ads That Are Helpful to Users. "And Every Time We Introduce New Use Cases in Search, the Advertising Team Finds New Ways to Make Money."

The Alphabet stock showed itself 0.89 percent stronger in Thursday trading on the NASDAQ at 175.42 US dollars.