In a world where technology evolves faster than the latest season of your favorite series, the next major shift is just around the corner—and it affects how we surf, search, and book online. Imagine planning your next vacation not by tedious clicking and scrolling, but by having a fluid conversation with an AI assistant that understands your desires and delivers personalized suggestions. Sounds like science fiction? This is the future of web search, which, thanks to generative artificial intelligence (AI), could soon become reality.

Gartner drops a bombshell with a forecast that traditional search engine volumes will plummet by a whopping 25% by 2026, displaced by AI chatbots and virtual assistants. The way we know search will fundamentally change—from a monotonous list of links to a dialogue-based, intuitive, and interactive experience. Major search engines have long recognized this trend and are gearing up: Bing with ChatGPT, Google with Bard, and Baidu with Ernie Bot are just the pioneers in a race that has just begun.

New players like Perplexity are entering the field, promising nothing less than a revolution in web search. Imagine a world where search queries become real conversations that not only address your questions but also understand the context, prioritize individually, and offer the ability to probe further.

What does this mean for the travel and hospitality industry? The key to success in this new era could be a dialogue-based travel planning tool, like the one Booking.com has already introduced in the USA. Instead of sifting through countless options, you have a conversation with a chatbot that helps you find the ideal hotel. An exciting preview of what awaits us in the future.

But where do these technological marvels get their information? In the case of the Booking.com chatbot, it's the content from their own platform. For search engines like Perplexity, it's the immense content of the internet. Yet, with the increase in AI-generated content, the internet faces new challenges: How do we ensure the quality and trustworthiness of information?

The answer lies in quality. In the future, search engines and social media will pay even closer attention to ensuring that content is not only high-quality but also genuinely helpful and trustworthy. It will be essential to distinguish real from AI-generated content, possibly through markings like watermarks.

The evolution of web search through AI is more than just a technological advancement; it's a change that will redefine our behavior and expectations of the internet. The ability to virtually explore hotels before booking or to create a travel plan perfectly tailored to your desires may still sound like the music of the future. But in a world that's constantly on the move, tomorrow might already be today. Prepare for a journey where the boundaries between physical and virtual blur, and every click becomes a conversation. Welcome to the fascinating future of web search!