Google Search used to be “type a few words, get 10 blue links.” In this episode of Limitless, VP of Product Robby Stein joins Josh and Ejaaz to unpack how AI is quietly blowing up that mental model, and turning search into a multimodal, conversational system that can see, listen, and even act on your behalf.
Robby explains why AI is “expansionary” rather than cannibalistic, how Gemini-powered models now issue their own Google searches and query live graphs behind the scenes, and why visual search via Lens is one of the fastest-growing ways people interact with the web. Along the way, he shares lessons from shipping Instagram Stories, digs into agents that can book your restaurant table or research the right safe for your documents, and talks candidly about ads, publisher traffic, and the responsibility that comes with sitting at the internet’s front door.
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
0:56 AI-Driven Evolution of Search
3:26 From Blue Links to AI Overviews
7:58 Conversational Search as the New Mental Model
10:58 Agents, Reservations & Doing Things For You
14:15 Is AI Cannibalizing Search, or Growing It?
16:52 Hardware, Glasses & Where Search Lives
18:40 Under the Hood of Gemini-Powered Search
21:46 Instagram Stories, Product Taste & Don’t Flip the UX Table
26:15 Google’s Unique Edge vs. Other AIs
28:14 Monetization and Advertising in AI Search
30:25 Ad Principles and Experiments
32:56 Integration of Gemini and Search
36:04 How Gemini & Google Search Actually Work Together
39:58 Personalized Recommendations and Transparency
43:40 Future Vision of Search Across Devices
46:21 Closing Thoughts
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RESOURCES
Robby Stein
https://x.com/rmstein
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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
