Mobile-industry analyst Eric Seufert is pushing back on the idea that Muse and other AI agents will inevitably kill Google Search. In a post outlining his case, he argued that personal experience with a product is too narrow a basis for explaining the business model of a company the size of Google or predicting its disruption.
Search ads do more than capture a query
Seufert’s case starts with product discovery. Search advertising, he wrote, can expand beyond the exact keywords a shopper enters, while many shopping journeys begin before someone knows precisely what they want to buy. Advertisers can also test whether search spending produces additional revenue. He acknowledged that some search ad spending is wasted, but said that is true of every advertising channel.
Google already owns the distribution
The other half of the argument is reach. Seufert pointed to Google’s browser, mobile platform, integrated consumer products and existing AI services as tools it could use to adapt shopping to agent-driven interfaces. He also cited Universal Commerce Protocol, Universal Cart and agentic checkout as signs that the shift is already underway.
That does not mean Google’s position is guaranteed. It is Seufert’s argument that reducing Search to a system that charges for traffic it once supplied organically misses both its discovery value and Google’s ability to change. He also expects Muse to need significant revenue at scale and predicts advertising will probably be part of that model.
