[2607.04282] The New Shape of Search: How Conversational AI Recomposes Information Seeking

Skip to main content

Search arXiv

Press Enter to search · Advanced search

-->

Computer Science > Human-Computer Interaction

arXiv:2607.04282 (cs)

[Submitted on 5 Jul 2026 (v1), last revised 28 Jul 2026 (this version, v2)]

Title:The New Shape of Search: How Conversational AI Recomposes Information Seeking

Authors:Michael Iannelli, Alan Ai<br>View a PDF of the paper titled The New Shape of Search: How Conversational AI Recomposes Information Seeking, by Michael Iannelli and Alan Ai

View PDF<br>HTML (experimental)

Abstract:The familiar search journey begins with a query and moves outward into documents, while conversational AI is commonly imagined at its start: ask first, then click out. Linking captured prompts and responses to the same panelists' observed searches and pageviews, we reconstruct inactivity-defined sessions across standalone assistant, search, and browsing surfaces. Search-embedded AI is excluded because it appears within the results page.

Observed journeys more often run in the opposite direction. Content usually follows search but more often precedes assistant use. Within the same panelist, the paired difference in direction between the two anchors is +20.6 percentage points [19.9, 21.3]. The pattern persists across every coarse destination-domain stratum we observe, though semantic task and task-stage matching remain unresolved, and all headline results replicate in an adjacent month. Search tends to anchor the front of the journey; assistants sit deeper within it.

Assistant sessions are also more often self-contained. On a user-weighted basis, 34.1% [33.5, 34.7] of assistant-containing sessions show no observed external web step, versus 19.5% [19.2, 19.8] of search-centered sessions among the same users, a within-user contrast of +13.0 percentage points [12.5, 13.6]. Other assistant sessions are AI-first (10.5%), AI-last (18.3%), or bridge/interleaved (37.1%). We call this recomposition: activity is distributed differently across dialogue, search, and browsing, without implying that assistant use caused the difference. Self-contained does not mean resolved; timestamps alone cannot establish a single task, satisfaction, or completion. The result is a cross-surface topology of the emerging search journey and a discipline for distinguishing observed containment from inferred resolution.

Comments:<br>Comments: 7 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables

Subjects:

Human-Computer Interaction (cs.HC); Computers and Society (cs.CY); Information Retrieval (cs.IR)

ACM classes:<br>H.3.3; H.5.2; H.1.2

Cite as:<br>arXiv:2607.04282 [cs.HC]

(or<br>arXiv:2607.04282v2 [cs.HC] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2607.04282

Focus to learn more

arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

Submission history<br>From: Michael Iannelli [view email]<br>[v1]<br>Sun, 5 Jul 2026 12:48:17 UTC (72 KB)

[v2]<br>Tue, 28 Jul 2026 18:39:10 UTC (77 KB)

Full-text links:<br>Access Paper:

View a PDF of the paper titled The New Shape of Search: How Conversational AI Recomposes Information Seeking, by Michael Iannelli and Alan Ai<br>View PDF<br>HTML (experimental)<br>TeX Source

view license

Current browse context:

cs.HC

next >

new<br>recent<br>| 2026-07

Change to browse by:

cs<br>cs.CY<br>cs.IR

References & Citations

NASA ADS<br>Google Scholar

Semantic Scholar

export BibTeX citation<br>Loading...

BibTeX formatted citation

&times;

loading...

Data provided by:

Bookmark

Bibliographic Tools

Bibliographic and Citation Tools

Bibliographic Explorer Toggle

Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?)

Connected Papers Toggle

Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?)

Litmaps Toggle

Litmaps (What is Litmaps?)

scite.ai Toggle

scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?)

Code, Data, Media

Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article

alphaXiv Toggle

alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?)

Links to Code Toggle

CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?)

DagsHub Toggle

DagsHub (What is DagsHub?)

GotitPub Toggle

Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?)

Huggingface Toggle

Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?)

ScienceCast Toggle

ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?)

Demos

Demos

Replicate Toggle

Replicate (What is Replicate?)

Spaces Toggle

Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?)

Spaces Toggle

TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?)

Related Papers

Recommenders and Search Tools

Link to Influence Flower

Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?)

Core recommender toggle

CORE Recommender (What is CORE?)

Author

Venue

Institution

Topic

About arXivLabs

arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to...