Google’s Adaptation Dilemma
Watching a Giant Struggle in Real Time
Google’s Adaptation Dilemma: Watching a Giant Struggle in Real Time
I’ve closely watched Google through each of its major transitions— engineering, marketing, and the early rise of Big Data — evolving, adapting and redefining industries. What’s happening at Google currently provides a fascinating look into the nature and challenge of adaptation.
The Challenge of Adaptation
You’d think that companies with trillions of dollars, endless resources and a culture of risk-taking would be able to pivot easily. But history tells a different story. Sony no doubt had the iPod before Apple, yet failed to capitalize. Exxon, Dow, and other corporate giants have stumbled when facing disruptive change. General Electric, surprisingly, has done a better job than most in adapting over time.
But Google? The struggle is playing out in real-time, in a way that’s visible every time you use the internet. Every time you go to Google Search, you see a company that is hesitant to fully embrace the future it helped create.
The AI Search Shift — Or Lack Thereof
The most obvious example is Google’s cautious approach to AI-driven search. Unlike Perplexity or ChatGPT, where AI is front and center, Google keeps its AI buried under an expanded “Show more” feature. Those who want AI results know how to find them. But for the vast majority of users, search remains largely the same — just a list of links. Creatures of habit that we are, we scroll right past AI-generated summaries without engaging with them.
It’s actually a clever strategy. If Google ran all 99,000 searches per second globally through its AI, the cost would be astronomical — far beyond what Perplexity or OpenAI face with their smaller-scale models. So instead, they make AI available only to those who actively seek it out. It’s a way to hedge the future, keeping the essential business intact while dipping a toe into the AI revolution.
The Nature of Adaptation: Essential, Expendable, Emerging
For Google to truly leap forward, it would need to let go of, or radically transform, its most profitable product: search. (Though Google’s “dark” budget from the U.S. military could be close). The business model that turned Google into an empire — indexing the web and selling ads against it — is now a barrier to its AI future.
But will they do it? Probably not. The status quo is too entrenched. Too many jobs, too much market predictability, too much revenue at stake. A radical shift in search would also risk alienating billions of users, and let’s not forget.
Google’s struggle is a textbook case of the Adaptive Leadership principle of Essential, Expendable, Emerging — a framework that helps organizations navigate transformation.
Essential: The heart of the business — the essential value Google provides. In this case, it’s not search itself but organizing the world’s information in a way that feels seamless and intuitive.
Expendable: The old systems, habits and revenue streams that once drove success but now hold the company back. Traditional link-based search and the massive ad ecosystem built around it are Google’s biggest “expendable” constraints.
Emerging: The future of the business — the experiments and innovations that could redefine Google’s value. AI-powered search, agent-driven results and conversational interfaces all fall into this category.
The problem? Google is trying to serve all three at once without making the hard trade-offs. True adaptation means elevating the emerging, protecting the essential, and letting go of the expendable— even when it’s painful.
The Ethical Reckoning: What Google Lost That It Shouldn’t Have
Google once stood for something more than just innovation — it stood for a vision of technology in service of the common good. It wasn’t just a slogan; it was a real ethos, essential to the company’s culture and decisions. I know this because I met many of the people who created this ethos in the mid ‘00s— brilliant, idealistic and deeply committed to using technology to improve the world.
But somewhere along the way, Google lost that. And that, more than anything else, may be its greatest leadership failure.
It didn’t happen overnight. It wasn’t a dramatic fall, but a slow erosion. The company that once declared “Don’t be evil” quietly dropped the phrase. The company that once vowed never to use AI for weapons or surveillance quietly also walked back that commitment just recently. Bit by bit, the values that once defined Google — transparency, openness, a mission-driven approach to technology — faded.
And this wasn’t just an inevitable consequence of growth. It was a choice. Google had a once-in-a-generation opportunity to define what it meant to be a big tech company that worked for the public good, not just for profit. It could have set the gold standard for ethical technology at scale. Instead, it let that mantle slip away.
Now, other companies, Meta and X most notably, are trying to reclaim what Google abandoned. Whether you agree with that statement is a worthy debate, and whether they will succeed is still an open question. But what’s clear is that Google had this chance first — and lost it.
This isn’t just a branding issue. It’s a leadership failure of the highest order. The kind of failure that doesn’t just cost a company market share — it costs it its soul.
Watching It Happen in Real Time
The most fascinating part of this moment is that it’s happening right in front of us. Every single day, on the Google homepage, we are watching the slow-motion struggle of a tech giant caught between its past and its future. A company that revolutionized the internet is now being challenged to revolutionize itself — and the outcome is far from certain.
The question isn’t whether AI will replace search. It’s whether Google will have the courage to replace itself before someone else does.