But on Wednesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivered a powerful counter-narrative, armed with staggering new data that suggests the AI "threat" is actually making its core product stronger than ever. The story Google is telling is not one of defense, but of offense. Far from cannibalizing its search business, AI is encouraging people to search more, ask new kinds of questions, and engage more deeply with the platform. "We see AI powering an expansion in how people are searching for and accessing information, unlocking completely new kinds of questions you can ask Google,†Pichai said in remarks for the company's Q2 earnings call. "Overall queries and commercial queries on Search continued to grow year over year. And our new AI experiences significantly contributed to this increase in usage."