UAE, Dubai: Search is no longer primarily about reading text and clicking links, but about watching, listening and experiencing, according to an expert speaking at the 1 Billion Followers Summit in a keynote session titled ‘Google is dead and you missed the funeral.’

Melissa Laurie, founder and CEO of Oysterly Media, a Singapore based creative social media agency, said traditional search results have become overwhelming, commercial and less efficient for users.

“Just imagine we are all going on holidays and you would like to search for a hotel. You look on Google and find so many options, you also find a lot of sponsored listings,” she said.

She explained that users now instinctively scroll past paid listings and heavily optimised articles because they feel inauthentic and untrustworthy. Many images used in traditional search results, she added, do not reflect the current reality of a place and offer little sense of lived experience.

“This is what search has become,” she said. “It is not surprising that for the first time in a decade Google’s share of search has declined. The traffic has not disappeared, it has moved.”

Laurie said this shift is already visible in market behaviour. Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT help narrow down choices but still push users back to websites and static pages. In contrast, searching on TikTok or Instagram immediately delivers movement, sound, people and emotion.

“ChatGPT is very efficient, it helps to narrow our search, but it’s not showing us the experience of what these hotels are like. In fact we still have to click and go to other web pages from here.”

She contrasted this with discovery on social video platforms.

“When you search on TikTok you’ve got imagery, people moving, you’ve got audio, it’s a completely different experience” Laurie said.

“In less than 15 seconds we’ve got an authentic experience of what this hotel was like. The video was filmed on a phone; it’s natural and not overly polished. And just take a look at its comments; you won’t find these comments on web pages or ChatGPT. It’s a completely different experience.”

Laurie said short form videos also create emotional and social connection.

“Short-form content does not just inform us, it connects us to brands, creators and to each other,” she said. “We are no longer searching for information, we are searching for experience.”

Citing TikTok data, Laurie said that one in four users now searches for something within 30 seconds of opening the app, underlining how discovery has become an immediate, visual behaviour rather than a deliberate text-based one.

Instagram, she added, has undergone a similar transformation. “Instagram was built as a photo platform and is now fundamentally a video platform,” she said. “When you search for the best hotel or travel experience on Instagram today, what you get is a video. Adam Mosseri himself [Instagram CEO] has said the platform is now focused on search and social discovery.”

She added that other platforms are rapidly following the same path.

Laurie said short-form video is not only changing how people find information, but also how they build trust.

She concluded that the rise of short-form video represents one of the most significant shifts in digital behaviour since the emergence of search engines themselves, with every major technology platform now investing heavily in video as the primary interface for discovery.

The fourth edition of the 1 Billion Followers Summit has attracted significant momentum, drawing in over 30,000 people including more than 15,000 content creators from across the globe as well as 500+ expert speakers with a collective following of 3.5+ billion, and 150+ CEOs and global experts.

About the 1 Billion Followers Summit

With a goal of reaching over a billion people worldwide, the 1 Billion Followers Summit, the world’s largest event dedicated to shaping the content creator economy, organized by the UAE Government Media Office, brings together top global social media influencers across all online platforms. The summit explores how new media can drive positive societal change and fuel sustainable economic growth for nations. It is a key component of the UAE’s drive to foster a vibrant content creator community.

For more information, please visit www.1billionsummit.com