It doesn't make as many headlines (yet) —it's not as exciting as ChatGPT passing the bar exam—but unlike many other proposed AI use cases, it's delivering reliable results today.

For months, I've been using Perplexity, and it's nearly replaced Google for me. Instead of combing through pages of results, I get concise, contextual answers. It handles follow-up questions, and if I want to go right to the source, it's right there too. It’s gained my (almost) "blind" trust in a way that other widely available consumer AI applications haven’t.

Beyond better web searches, there are several—yes, perhaps obvious, but nonetheless impactful— search-adjacent applications that are already starting to add value today:

• Internal Knowledge Management: Instead of asking customer-facing agents and employees to dig through FAQs and internal documents, AI-powered search (leveraging Retrieval Augmented Generation techniques) can provide specific answers to real-world scenarios and enable a conversational flow as customer-facing agents troubleshoot live with a customer.

• Self-guided Customer Support: B2C companies will be accelerating the use AI-powered chat to guide customers through troubleshooting. These AI-enhanced bots could also tap into curated community content from trusted experts—like videos and social media. (As someone whose hobby is music production, I’m looking at you, Apple’s hashtag#LogicPro and Ableton hashtag#Live teams—hint hint.)

Related detour: It will be interesting to watch how Alphabet adapts—given that Google Search ads are still a huge portion of their revenue—to a shift that reduces or eliminates the need for clicks.