Brave New World: The Future of Search

Information can tell us everything. It has all the answers. But they are answers to questions we have not asked, and which doubtless don’t even arise. — Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories, Ch. 5, 1987.

“How can my digital team reap the benefits of the changing world of search?”

To do this, it’s important to understand the evolution that has happened in search engines themselves: they have been transformed from tools to find content into personal assistants to help you meet your needs and wants. Search engines are now one part of the content discovery experience.

The holy grail of online search has been for websites to deliver upon the wants and needs of people based on them providing few, if no inputs.

“My vision when we started Google 15 years ago was that eventually you wouldn’t have to have a search query at all.” — Sergei Brin, 2013

Think about what this implies. It means that the computer would need to be able to figure out what information you need without you needing to ask for it. Further, it means figuring out what else you want but perhaps have not asked for, perhaps because you do not know how.

Google’s solution used to need search queries. It was also designed for people using desktop computers. Fast forward to 2015 and you find: