Google's AI Organized Restaurant Results
Recent tests of Google's AI Organized search results restaurants and bars is striking. The many local carousels create a highly visual search results that dominates the page and reflects an all Google approach to search that leaves little room for anything else.
We are starting to see a broader test (rollout?) of Google's new AI organized restaurant results in search. First announced at Google I/O in May, tested during the summer and released for recipes this past week, AI organized results are now showing more broadly for restaurant and bar results.
For lack of a better description, they are intense. On the search for "best cocktail bar in NYC" the AI organized results were 8 1/2 full screen scrolls (almost 18,000 pixels high) from beginning to end. The result was comprised of 12 horizontal local carousels and each carousel took up ~1050 pixels.
Exactly how Google is determining the groupings to provide the cocktail bar categories in the search results is TBD; it is likely based on user search behaviors although critic reviews could also play a significant role in the classification.
The first carousel has a large (and somewhat buggy) map embedded above it and a button for More Places below it. The subsequent carousels included two buttons; one taking you to an in-line Maps view and the other taking you to the Places search modifier result for the specific type of cocktail bar. Each carousel shows two results immediately and allows a user to scroll to the right for another 4 locations.
You can see the carousel and Places results page in this video
The total number of carousels is market dependent with a lesser metro area like Rochester, NY getting "only" 5 carousels and Albany defaulting to the 3-Pack and not getting the AI results at all. Similar AI organized results were visible for me on searches for cocktail bars in Canada & Mexico but not for searches in the EU or when not logged in.
Google's Pitch
At I/O and again last week, Google positioned AI organized search results as a way to bring "people more diverse content formats and sites, creating even more opportunities for content to be discovered". They also pitch the idea that "AI can help you explore and discover a wider range of results from the web, for those questions that may be open-ended or have no single right answer".
To some extent these results do help users find a better answer when looking for the best cocktail bar... these results facet that query into multiple parts allowing a user to narrow in on exactly what they are looking.
They also say "you can easily explore content and perspectives from across the web including articles, videos, forums and more — all in one place". That is for sure true... and that one place is Google.
Offers & Events
When the AI organized result wern't showing, we frequently saw the "Nearby offers and events" feature below the 3-Pack. This mostly drew from Google Posts (are they again rising from the ashes?) but they also can come from Facebook and we assume other sources.
Antitrust Implications
In the NYC results my finger cramped well before the first organic result was anywhere to be seen. Of course once you did finally get to the organic results Reddit was frequently among them and Yelp had even moved further down the result.
These results are all local, all the time. They rely almost exclusively on Google's local knowledge graph and they are intensely visual in a Tic-Tok/Instagram kind of way. Despite Google's claim of bringing you information from "across the web", nothing from the web is very visible. Websites in the carousels are always at least two clicks and often three clicks away from the searcher.
If these results reflect the final or near final implementation of the AI organized results for local then Yelp's antitrust arguments of self preferencing and disadvantaging competitors becomes even more compelling.
Still Missing the Mark?
There is value in using AI to facet a local search result that might be interpreted differently by different searchers. This type of user choice, like showing the many different types of cocktail bars, should lead searchers down their optimal path fairly quickly.
That being said, this result is still missing the mark that Google set for themselves of solving more complex problems, allowing consideration of more options and providing fresh ideas. The example that Google offered, "Anniversary Celebration dinner places Dallas", doesn't do much of anything. I can conceive of other local searches that would provide significant value but for which Google has no current solution like "Best Cocktail bars with 80 miles of my home" or "surgeons that specialize in Holmium laser prostate surgery within 4 hours of Olean".
The real power of Google's vision would be the ability for the results, not just to disambiguate ambiguous queries, but to break free from the arbitrary and rigid constraints of the Local algo.