The post-search Google era begins

On The Vergecast: The AI will Google for you now, the Trump Phone is real, and SpaceX is SpaceT-Mobile.

by David Pierce

May 22, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

David Pierce is editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.

Google is many things, but most of the time it’s a verb: It is what it is to search the internet for information. But what if it’s an AI agent doing the searching? And it’s doing it proactively? Without even telling you about it? In the world Google imagines, in which so much of the actual googling happens without your prompting, involvement, or even knowledge, can you even call Google a search engine anymore?

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These are the heady questions we get to in this episode of The Vergecast. But first, we have some news to talk about. There’s the corporate news — which really boils down to “nothing that matters is changing” — and there’s some exciting podcast news. The Vergecast is going daily! Starting June 1st, we’ll be in your feeds five days a week. We’d love to hear all your thoughts, story ideas, feedback, deep-seated fears, and qualms about all of this, so give us a call at 866-VERGE11 or email us at vergecast@theverge.com.

Then it’s on to the news of the week. Which is mostly from Google I/O, where Nilay went both to cover the event and to chat with Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Nilay and David discuss all the ways search is changing, why Google seems so confident in its place in the AI ecosystem, and what this all means for the future of the web. And, frankly, whether the web even still has a future.

Finally, in the lightning round, it’s time for the Hype Desk, Brendan Carr is a Dummy, and the latest on the SpaceX IPO, the Trump Phone, and the social media industry’s spectacularly confusing approach to AI.