Google CEO Pichai reframes links as 'part' of search rather than its foundation, signaling a shift toward AI-generated answers over web content visibility

In a recent podcast, Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated that 'Sources and links will always be there as part of it,' characterizing web sources as a feature of search rather than its foundation.

Google is introducing features like 'preferred sources' (which lets users pick their own sources) and showing websites inside chat to keep users within Google's interface, while AI answers pull from web content positioned further in the background.

When Google generates answers itself and shows sources primarily within its own interface—where almost nobody clicks anyway—the company shifts from information broker to publisher, making editorial decisions about which voices appear in its answer engine.