For the first time since it debuted decades ago, Google Search faces a huge threat: ChatGPT. After all, why go to Search to find what you need when you can have a conversation with a bot that can not only help you find a link but give you context for that link and help you with the next steps. Oh yeah, and no ads.

With the rollout of Google Bard in March, it was only a matter of time before the company announced that a Google Search AI chatbot is in the works. Today, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed just that.

Unfortunately, that’s about all Pichai confirmed. He declined to give a timeline for the rollout of this feature. He also did not clarify if this Google Search AI chatbot would be Bard, based on Bard, or something else.

“Will people be able to ask questions to Google and engage with LLMs [language learning models] in the context of search? Absolutely,” Mr. Pichai said.

Google is already behind the times when it comes to AI chatbots. Bard is not fully accessible by the public yet, putting it behind ChatGPT. Microsoft has already incorporated AI chat into its own search engine, Bing. In other words, Google needs to move quickly to keep up.

Google Search is still the company’s cash cow, pulling in $162 billion last year alone. If it starts losing market share to other AI chatbots — or even Bing, the butt of jokes for over a decade now — it could be in serious trouble. Without a doubt, this is the biggest threat Google has faced since it started.

We’ll just need to wait and see how quickly Google can move now.