AI is reshaping search entry points and rewriting the digital competitive landscape of the Global South

When search changes from “keywords” to “tasks,” the Global South is also drawn into a new round of platform reassessment

CNN recently reported that Google is undertaking a major overhaul of its core search experience to adapt to users’ increasingly long and complex questions. At the same time, more and more people are beginning their searches in AI applications like ChatGPT, then returning to traditional search engines to complete transactions, verify information, or continue comparing options. On the surface, this is a product update centered on the “search box”; but from a broader emerging-market perspective, it signals that one of the internet’s most important infrastructures is being rewritten.

Search has never been merely an information tool. It determines how traffic is allocated, where advertising budgets flow, how retail and service transactions take place, and which companies can enter users’ field of view. For developed markets, this means the competition for entry points among Google, OpenAI, Meta, and Amazon is accelerating. For the Global South, it raises a deeper question: after AI reshapes the internet, who will be able to own the new digital channels, and who will be further locked into platform dependence?

The new internet entry point is not just “smarter,” but also “more concentrated”

CNN quoted a Google product lead as saying that users are asking longer and harder questions, and the traditional internet may not be able to provide direct answers. Google is therefore introducing more complex interactive capabilities on its search pages, including generating customized visual content, interactive charts, and even running mini-apps within the search results page. At the same time, Google is also pushing stronger multimodal search, allowing users to initiate queries through images, files, or browser tabs.

The commercial implications of these changes are very clear: search is no longer just about “directing content,” but is beginning to “handle tasks.” In the advertising and e-commerce industries, this shift will compress intermediate steps, improve conversion efficiency, and redefine platform bargaining power. For big tech companies, it is an opportunity to increase user dwell time, lock in transaction entry points, and strengthen monetization; for small and medium-sized businesses and content websites, it may mean fewer organic clicks, greater platform dependence, and becoming harder for algorithms to discover.

Pew Research previously noted that when AI summaries appear in search results, users’ willingness to click external links declines. CNN also reported that Google still sends billions of clicks to websites every day, but the traffic structure is already changing. For emerging markets with weaker digital foundations, this shift is especially important, because local media, service providers, education platforms, and small and medium-sized e-commerce businesses often rely more on search distribution than on having strong brand-direct access.

The opportunity for the Global South: shifting from “traffic access” to “capability embedding”

If the core of internet competition over the past decade was mobile payments, super apps, and social commerce, then the next stage of competition may shift toward AI-driven “intent recognition” and “instant fulfillment.” For regions such as Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, this means two opposing possibilities.

One possibility is that AI makes low-cost digital access more widespread.One possibility is that AI makes low-cost digital access more widespread. Google noted that searches based on selecting areas in images or on-screen content increased by 60% year over year; queries in AI Mode are, on average, three times longer than ordinary searches. For markets where smartphone penetration is rising rapidly but information retrieval capability remains uneven, multimodal and conversational search may lower the barrier to technology adoption and help more users make decisions in education, travel, healthcare, and consumption.

Another possibility is more worrying: once the entry point is controlled by a few multinational platforms, local businesses’ room to negotiate will be further squeezed. Whether in Nairobi, Jakarta, Lagos, or São Paulo, merchants may face the same problem—traffic comes from the platform, but data, algorithms, and business rules do not belong to the local market. AI further amplifies this asymmetry because it does not only decide “who gets seen,” but also “how they are understood.”

This is also why digital transformation in the Global South cannot stop at device penetration or app downloads; it must extend to models, local-language data, cloud infrastructure, payments and clearing, and content distribution capabilities. Otherwise, growth in the digital economy is likely to be only a surface expansion, while the real value capture remains in the hands of overseas platforms.

Capital is chasing AI entry points, but risk pricing in emerging markets will not disappear at the same pace

AI’s reshaping of the internet is also changing the logic of international capital allocation. In the past, capital would first bet on social media, search, e-commerce, and content platforms; now, investors are re-evaluating who can control the user entry point in the AI era, who can turn conversations into transactions, and who can secure default positions in shopping, advertising, and workflows.

What does this mean for emerging markets? First, multinational tech companies will continue to increase investment in a small number of markets with scale effects, especially regions with young populations, high mobile usage, and fast growth in digital advertising. Second, AI-driven business models will strengthen the winner-takes-all effect, making it easier for leading platforms to penetrate marginal markets, while local startups face higher customer acquisition costs and faster pressure from technological iteration.

But capital will not ignore risk. The faster AI spreads, the more prominent the issues of regulation, data governance, intellectual property, content authenticity, and environmental costs become. For economies with limited fiscal space, uneven regulatory capacity, and digital infrastructure still under construction, these issues will directly affect investment certainty. In other words, AI may bring a new growth narrative, but it will not automatically dissolve sovereign risk.

Population structure and digital behavior are changing in parallel

CNN, citing analyses by Semrush and others, shows that some users are beginning to use search engines in ways closer to ChatGPT: longer sentences, more specific requests, and clearer tasks. This change may look like a minor adjustment in usage habits, but in fact it reflects a structural shift in the behavior of a generation of digital natives.For the Global South, a large youth population, frequent smartphone use, and deep social platform penetration all naturally favor AI’s infiltration into everyday information access. Young people are often more willing to embrace conversational search, visual results, and automatically generated content, and are also more inclined to complete the entire process from search to decision-making within a single platform.

This means that future digital competition is not just about “who has the most users,” but about “who first turns user behavior into tradable intent data.” In this respect, emerging markets with large populations and rapid urbanization will become key targets in the competition among global tech companies, because there is not only growth there, but also a platform landscape that has not yet fully solidified.

Beyond Supply Chains, Data Chains Are Also Shifting

Over the past few years, the global market has become accustomed to discussing manufacturing reshoring, nearshoring, and supply chain restructuring; in the AI era, another trend is that data chains and traffic chains are being reconstructed in parallel. Once search, shopping, advertising, and content recommendation become integrated, companies must think not only about where to locate factories, but also where to place data training, content generation, customer reach, and conversion.

Against this backdrop, markets such as India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, and South Africa are participating in this transformation in different ways. Some are attracting platform investment by leveraging large populations and software talent, some are expanding domestic digital consumption through e-commerce and payment ecosystems, and others are seeking to increase local value retention through regulation and data sovereignty policies.

But the common challenge is this: AI infrastructure is highly capital-intensive, and computing power, cloud services, data centers, and high-quality labeled data all require sustained investment. This will strengthen international capital’s preference for a small number of node markets, and will also shift the digital divide from “whether there is internet access” to “whether one has the capacity to participate in the AI economy.”

The Future Watershed Is Not Whether AI Enters the Internet, but Who Can Define the Rules

The most important lesson from this CNN report is not what product adjustments Google made, but that the internet is shifting from a “network for searching information” into a “network for answering questions, executing tasks, and completing transactions.” This will change traffic, business models, and even the position of the Global South in the digital economy.

For policymakers, the real issue is not only how to attract more tech investment, but how to ensure that local enterprises, content creators, and small and medium-sized merchants are not marginalized by the next wave of platform consolidation. For investors, the real issue is not only whether AI will grow, but where the gains from that growth will be retained: in local markets, regional platforms, or in the hands of shareholders of multinational platforms.

When internet entry points are redefined, the map of global capital will be redrawn as well. For emerging markets seeking long-term growth, the key is not whether they participate in the AI wave, but whether they can preserve their own pricing power, data rights, and room for industrial upgrading in the midst of that wave.

ConclusionAI is changing search, and on the surface it looks like a product update; but when placed within the broader framework of the Global South and emerging markets, it looks more like a reordering of digital sovereignty, capital allocation, and growth trajectories. Over the next decade, the value of the internet will belong not only to platforms that can generate answers, but also to economies that can turn technology into local productivity and traffic into industrial capability. Whoever can do this will be more likely to secure a position in the next shift of the global center of growth.