The future of search engines is uncertain. Technologies are changing at a rapid pace, with new inventions being released on an almost daily basis. It’s difficult to know what the future holds for this ubiquitous technology. We can speculate about which technologies will be more prominent in the future or how they will evolve, but one thing is certain: The future of search engines will be different than its past!
Future search engines will be experience-led. They won’t just provide results based on keywords but will understand the user and their intent behind a given query. For example, future search engine technologies might include:
- Voice recognition technology to find information when speaking with someone
- Facial recognition or eye-tracking capabilities that can determine what kind of content we are interested in seeing and how it relates to us personally (e.g., related products for future blog posts)
- The ability to tell if we’re feeling happy/sad/relaxed etc so future blog posts aren’t upsetting, overwhelming, etc… In other words, future search engines may be able to pick up on our mental state at any point during a conversation or session and adapt future results to our mood (or vice versa).
- The ability for future search engines to read brainwaves or thoughts in order to determine what we’re thinking/feeling at any given moment so future blog posts can be relevant, enticing, etc.
- Cognitive computing that is able to understand complex natural language queries such as “I’m feeling sad today and want a funny post about dogs” which would return content corresponding with those feelings instead of simply returning webpages containing the words “dogs,” “sad,” and “funny.” That said, some people may not like this idea because it’s essentially minding control over future searches…definitely food for thought!
- Another possibility includes future search engines being able to gather data from a user’s past search history and future social media posts to deliver information that they deem relevant. This is already happening with the Google app which tells you how long it will take for your home to reach a certain destination based on previous driving patterns.
- Using natural language queries as opposed to keyword searches – understanding future intent/moods, etc.
- Knowing our personal preferences, needs wants, fears, etc., then creating personalized results according to those factors rather than just keywords or key phrases that may not reflect what we’re looking for at all times due to emotions/feelings influencing future intentions. The idea here being future search engines would be able to use cognitive computing capabilities to analyze complex emotional states so content can change depending on future moods, feelings, etc.
- Instead of just based on previous search history, future search engines will also use our social media accounts to understand future intent/moods so future searches won’t be tied down to keywords or key phrases but could potentially predict how we’ll feel in the future when searching for certain things and what type of content would best suit these likely emotions/feelings. In other words, knowing a user’s current & past preferences as well as their online behavior allows them to provide accurate results that are highly personalized according to those factors rather than just simple keyword matching found with most traditional web crawlers today which can result in missed opportunities if looking at it from an advertising perspective – where ads may not match up with user intent.