Nick Fox on AI strategy

May 20th at Google Marketing Live, I was very fortunate to be able to sit down for ~20 minutes with Nick Fox, SVP of Knowledge and Information at Google. Earlier in the day he had a fireside chat with Ben Smith, Editor-in-Chief Semafor. Later that afternoon after I had time to reflect on this conversation, I had a ~20min interview with Nick. It’s not often you get to sit down with one of the top execs at a ~$5T company so I worked a lot of topics into a short time. As always, I try and approach this with you, the audience in mind. What would YOU ask? I had just completed a super tactical Agentic Commerce / UCP/Universal Checkout chat with Ashish, so for this one flipped into high-level strategic mode. In this interview we discuss: How does Nick ‘frame’ AIO/AI Mode/Gemini Will AI Mode/AIO and traditional search transition from traditional to AI Mode or will they merge, or ‘other’ down the road? Google’s had ~5 previous attempts from the Froogle era to today for ‘transactions on Google’ - why is this the moment they are getting super serious about it? Navigating the Innovator’s Dilemma Finally, managing trust at the intersection of ‘Answer engines’ and ‘AI Ads’ Timestamps: 01:45 — Scot introduces Nick Fox, Google SVP of Knowledge & Information 02:31 — “Search in the AI Era” and Google’s AI strategy 03:21 — What this interview covers: AI Mode, Gemini, ads, and commerce 04:00 — Why Google believes transactions will work this time 04:33 — The innovator’s dilemma and defending Search 05:16 — Ads, trust, and AI-generated answers 05:52 — Interview begins live from Google Marketing Live 06:23 — How Gemini is “supercharging” Google’s advertising products 06:50 — Ads inside AI Mode and agentic commerce tools 07:11 — Universal Commerce Protocol + Universal Cart 07:26 — Nick Fox on 23 years at Google and the AI era 08:07 — Why Google sees tech shifts as growth accelerators, not disruptions 08:53 — Search vs AI Overviews vs AI Mode vs Gemini explained 09:12 — Google’s “two main products”: Search and Gemini 10:16 — Reinventing the Search box for the AI era 11:01 — Will AI Mode eventually become the default? 12:10 — Google’s philosophy: combining AI + the web 13:00 — Why Google believes users still want the web 13:03 — Gemini “Spark” and agentic capabilities 13:43 — AI agents running 24/7 in the background 14:14 — Using Spark to manage complex tasks like event planning 14:50 — The future of Gemini in the agentic era 14:59 — Google as an economic engine and ad marketplace 15:42 — The innovator’s dilemma and Search resilience 16:04 — “Lean into the technology shifts” philosophy 16:52 — Why Google didn’t see AI as a business-model threat 17:17 — Google’s ad model as a marketplace between users and marketers 18:18 — Why Google Shopping is different this time 19:02 — Why AI enables better shopping confidence and discovery 19:43 — AI helping users get further down the purchase journey 20:24 — Trust, ads, and AI-generated answers 21:04 — Google’s principles for ads in AI experiences 21:31 — “Ads are clearly labeled, separate, and relevant” 21:58 — Closing thoughts and wrap-up 👉 Connect with Nick:   / nickthefox   👉 Learn more about Google Marketing Live: https://www.googlemarketinglive.com/d... 🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along: 📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai 📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates 🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts: Spotify, Apple, etc: https://retailgentic.transistor.fm/