Imposing a paid subscription on any part of the search engine is a new idea and will be the first of its kind for Google (Shutterstock)
Google may begin charging fees for search results that rely on generative artificial intelligence tools, according to a new report published by the Financial Times, citing three people familiar with the company’s plans.
The idea of imposing a paid financial subscription on any part of the search engine is a new idea, and would be the first of its kind for Google, which has been funding its search services from advertising revenues since 2000.
But it is not the first time that Google has imposed fees on artificial intelligence services in general, as the “Gemini Business” service subscription adds $20 per month to the “Google Workspace” subscription. While these paid products provide access to Google's Gemini Advanced model, the company also provides free access to the regular, lower-performance Gemini model without any type of paid subscription.
According to the proposed plan, traditional Google search, which does not rely on artificial intelligence, will remain free, and subscribers to the paid search package supported by artificial intelligence will continue to see ads alongside the search results that appear to them, according to the report.
But advertising revenues, which reached $175 billion last year, may not be enough to cover the high costs required by AI-powered research. A Reuters report last year indicated that processing a search request through a sophisticated neural network like Gemini often costs 10 times the cost of a keyword search on a regular Google search page, which could add several billion dollars in additional costs to the company.
So far, Google has not made a final decision regarding its implementation of this plan, adding a paid subscription for artificial intelligence searches.
Source: Financial Times