What is the future of Google search?

Google search faces the biggest transition in its history: defending a search-and-click advertising empire against AI systems that answer instead of linking. I predict AI-generated answers erode the click economy that funded Google for decades, and Google knows it: AI Overviews and AI Mode now answer above the links, and publishers report their Google traffic falling by double digits since 2024. The incumbent holds the data, the distribution, and the most to lose. Google survives, because it owns Gemini, Android, Chrome, and YouTube. Its click business does not survive intact. This is the fight of the decade, and clicks are the casualty.