Silicon Valley Girl

Google’s AI Search Expert: How to Get Ahead Before AI Changes Everything

📌 Grab for FREE guide for using Gemini for faster research, smarter strategy, and scalable content creation: https://clickhubspot.com/186fae What makes AI recommend one business - and ignore another? In this interview, Robby Stein, VP of Product for Google Search, breaks down how AI now decides what gets discovered, ranked, and recommended — and what founders, creators, and marketers can do to stay visible in the new era of search. 00:00 - Teaser 1:00 - How Google Search has changed 2:08 - Personalization in Google search 2:47 - New features in AI mode at Google 3:05 - Live DEMO: testing new features 4:07 - Google can book restaurants? 6:02 - How Google decides which restaurants to show first 7:24 - How to use Gemini to save hours at work 8:39 - Will Google Ads disappear? 11:08 - LIVE DEMO: Google’s agent makes a real phone call 14:07 - How to get your business recommended by AI 15:00 - Why PR will define visibility in the AI era 15:45 - What to do if businesses buy reviews 16:20 - How to grow fast with smarter search strategies 18:03 - Shopping powered by AI - what’s changing 18:48 - LIVE DEMO: shopping by taking a picture 20:20 - Google vs ChatGPT 22:50 - How to design your home with AI 24:25 - TIPS to build products that stand out in the AI era 25:58 - How to find ideas that actually work 27:20 - The 2 principles behind every viral product Links: 📩 Follow my Newsletter: https://siliconvalleygirl.beehiiv.com/ 🔗 My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconvalleygirl/ 📌 My Companies & Products: https://Marinamogilko.co 📹 Video brainstorming, research, and project planning - all in one place - https://partner.spotterstudio.com/ideas-with-marina 💻 Resources that helps my team and me grow the business: - Email & SMS Marketing Automation - https://your.omnisend.com/marina - AI app to work with docs and PFDs - https://www.chatpdf.com/?via=marina 📱Develop your YouTube with AI apps: - AI tool to edit videos in a minutes https://get.descript.com/fa2pjk0ylj0d - Boost your view and subscribers on YouTube - https://vidiq.com/marina - #1 AI video clipping tool - https://www.opus.pro/?via=7925d2 💰 Investment Apps: - Top credit cards for free flights, hotels, and cash-back - https://www.cardonomics.com/i/marina - Intuitive platform for stocks, options, and ETFs - https://a.webull.com/Tfjov8wp37ijU849f8 ⭐ Download my English language workbook - https://bit.ly/3hH7xFm I use affiliate links whenever possible (if you purchase items listed above using my affiliate links, I will get a bonus). #podcast #siliconvalleygirl #google

MMMarina MogilkohostRSRobby Steinguest

Oct 30, 2025·28m·Watch on YouTube ↗

📖 CHAPTERS

1. 1

   AI recommendations are the new growth lever for businesses

   Marina frames the stakes: AI-driven recommendations in ChatGPT/Google can make businesses “blow up overnight.” She introduces Robby Stein (VP of Product, Google Search) as the person who helps shape ranking and discovery in Google’s new AI experiences.

2. 2

   From keywords to natural language: how Google Search behavior is expanding

   Robby explains that search is evolving from keyword queries to full natural-language questions, without replacing classic search use cases. Google’s AI increasingly uses web and world context to make answers easier and more complete.

3. 3

   Personalization: what Google can (and can’t yet) use about you

   Marina presses on whether Search uses private Google data (Gmail, Drive, YouTube analytics). Robby describes opt-in personalization experiments and early Labs capabilities, while noting broader integration is still TBD.

4. 4

   AI Mode feature tour: local recommendations that feel “all-in-one”

   They walk through AI Mode returning lunch recommendations tailored to Marina’s location (Los Altos). Robby highlights how AI reasoning is combined with Google’s place context—hours, menus, reviews—so users can browse inside one experience.

5. 5

   Live demo: AI Mode searches, compares, and books restaurants for you

   Robby demonstrates a task-style flow where Google fans out across sources like OpenTable/Resy, researches options, and returns bookable times. The point is time compression: what used to take 15 minutes becomes a few clicks.

6. 6

   How AI Mode ranks results: query fan-out + Google’s knowledge systems

   Robby explains the mechanics behind recommendations: a reasoning model breaks a prompt into many related searches (“query fan-out”), uses Search as a tool, and pulls from Google’s real-time knowledge bases (including local place data). The final recommendations reflect constraints like vibe, occasion, and review signals.

7. 7

   Ads in the AI era: not disappearing, but evolving inside AI experiences

   Marina asks whether AI recommendations are pay-to-play and if Google Ads will fade. Robby says AI Mode’s local recommendations don’t use ad info directly, but ads aren’t going away—search usage is expanding, and Google is experimenting with ad formats in AI experiences.

8. 8

   Live demo: agentic calling to offline businesses (pet grooming)

   Robby shows a feature where Google collects requirements (pet type, size, service) and then places calls to local businesses on the user’s behalf. The system returns an email with quotes, availability, and which businesses couldn’t be reached, illustrating AI as an “offline concierge.”

9. 9

   How to get recommended by AI: PR, trusted mentions, and “AI-readable” credibility

   Marina asks for actionable guidance to improve AI recommendations for her businesses. Robby emphasizes that AI models evaluate signals similarly to people: reputable mentions, listicles, and widely found articles help establish reliability, alongside classic “helpful content” practices.

10. 10

    Reviews and reputation manipulation: why it’s messy and hard to reduce to one lever

    They discuss purchased reviews and how that might impact recommendations. Robby avoids overpromising specific heuristics, reinforcing that systems look for broadly reliable, helpful information—similar to how top-ranked pages tend to be trustworthy for a query.

11. 11

    Smarter search strategy: tools to find demand (Trends, Ads estimates, Search Console)

    Marina asks how small businesses can understand what people are looking for in order to be recommended. Robby points to underused resources like Google Trends, ad traffic estimators, and Search Console, especially as queries become longer, more specific, and multimodal.

12. 12

    AI shopping and multimodal discovery: Google’s shopping graph + photo search

    Robby positions Google’s advantage in commerce: a massive shopping graph with live inventory/price updates, now connected to AI reasoning. They demo taking a photo of a product to find similar items, and discuss why purchases still typically hand off to merchant sites for safety and error reduction.

13. 13

    Google vs ChatGPT: what Google believes is its durable edge

    Marina asks about the shift from “Google it” to “GPT it.” Robby argues Google’s strength is high-quality information retrieval grounded in Google’s knowledge systems (Finance, local, shopping) plus the open web, and notes fast growth in visual search via Lens.

14. 14

    AI for inspiration and home design: using web imagery + live visual Q&A

    Robby describes a newer focus: making AI better at inspiration (decor, design), an area where chat-style AI historically struggles. They show experiences that pull inspirational web images and enable follow-up questions, including a live camera mode that identifies objects in real time.

15. 15

    Building products that stand out in the AI era: find gaps, talk to users, test for stickiness

    The conversation shifts to product strategy in 2025: building is easier, so differentiation comes from insight, not code. Robby advises being a “student of gaps,” running deep user research, and identifying the moments that make people adopt—or abandon—your product.