Online traffic isn’t just “human vs bot” anymore.

It’s AI agents, good bots, bad bots… all blending in and getting harder to detect.

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Traditional security methods are falling behind. hCaptcha exposes hidden threats with adaptive AI models and intent analysis, providing instant, private verification. 

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Virtually all companies that book a demo with hCaptcha decide to move forward.

Hello!

Welcome to a new edition of “On the Net Today”, the newsletter where every Friday we share a selection of useful and interesting resources to help you get the most out of the internet and make the best use of your browsing time.

Here are the topics we’ve prepared for today:

Google, the world's leading search engine, has just rolled out its biggest update in more than 25 years: a new intelligent, AI-powered search box.

Google's iconic search box has been completely reimagined to adapt to new ways of searching in the AI era, because, as Google puts it, “your curiosity doesn't always fit into keywords”. The new box puts Google's AI tools right at users' fingertips, making it easier to ask questions.

The update was announced last Tuesday at Google's annual developer conference, I/O, held in Mountain View, California.

Google explains that the new search box is “more intuitive than ever, dynamically expanding to give you space to describe exactly what you need. Designed to anticipate your intent, it also helps you formulate your question with AI-powered suggestions that go beyond autocomplete. And you can search across modalities, using text, images, files, videos or Chrome tabs as inputs. You’ll continue to get a range of results from Search, just like you do today.”

Video:

Starting Tuesday, Google Search has upgraded to Gemini 3.5 Flash — Google's newest Flash model delivering sustained frontier performance for agents and coding — as the new default model in AI Mode, for everyone globally.

Just one year after its debut, AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users, with queries more than doubling every quarter since launch. Last quarter, queries reached an all-time high.

Another new feature: continuing the conversation with Search is now even simpler. Users can ask follow-up questions “right from an AI Overview, and flow into a conversational back and forth with AI Mode”. Context stays with the user throughout, and as they explore more deeply, “the links and supporting articles get even more relevant. This seamless experience is live today across desktop and mobile, worldwide.”

Google has also begun integrating agents into Search, starting with information agents, which will be available this summer for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers. These agents operate in the background, 24/7. With information agents, users can stay updated on whatever matters most to them. “Your agent will intelligently look across everything on the web, like blogs, news sites and social posts, plus our freshest data, such as real-time info on finance, shopping and sports, to monitor for changes related to your specific question.”

In addition to these search updates, you can find all the announcements from Google's annual I/O conference here.

Link:

A new digital cultural magazine has launched this week: Totei, specializing in exploring the creative process in its many forms. The publication is led by Puja Patel, former editor of Pitchfork and SPIN magazines.

According to Totei's introduction — founded by arts promoter Gaurav Kapadia — Totei is a publication about craft in all its forms: exploring the principles, obsessions, practices and internal logic behind creative work across disciplines, mediums and generations. It goes deep on the people shaping culture, from the quietly dedicated makers most people don't know yet to the critically acclaimed figures whose practices deserve a closer look.

Kapadia himself explained his reasons for launching the publication on X.

The introduction also notes that what their subjects share is rigor, intention and the conviction that curiosity and dedication can change the way we live. They hope readers come away with the same feeling inspired by a captivating work of art: that there is always more to discover.

The Totei website has launched with articles on chef Paul Carmichael, profiled by Jazmine Hughes; artists Trevor Paglen and Holly Herndon in conversation with Max Read about process and what's missing from the discourse on AI; the origin story of one of Raul De Lara's whimsical sculptures, by Alina Cohen; an interview with writer Susan Orlean on the art of asking the right questions, by Delia Cai; and an analysis of the tools behind duendita's experimental R&B, by Olivia Horn.

Totei is currently available as a website and newsletter, with a print edition planned for later this year.

Links:

The winners of the 2026 National Magazine Awards have been announced this week. Organized by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) to recognize the best print and digital magazines of the year across multiple categories, a total of 16 publications took home prizes, with Bloomberg News and New York Magazine each winning two awards.

Here is the full list of winners:

General Excellence, News, Sports and Entertainment
New York Magazine (nymag.com; curbed.com, thecut.com y vulture.com)

General Excellence, Service and Lifestyle
T: The New York Times Style Magazine

General Excellence, Special Interest
Texas Monthly / TM Signature Events

General Excellence, Literature, Science and Politics
The Bitter Southerner

Design
Rolling Stone y “The Rolling Stone Interview Archive”

Photography
New York for “The Yesteryear Issue”, “The 12th-Floor Dragnet” and “The Power Issue”

Podcasting
Pablo Torre Finds Out for the episodes “The Silent Superstar and the Rotten Apple Tree”, “The Mystery Investor, the No-Show Payday and the ‘Smoking Gun’: Kawhi-Gate, Part III” and “Steve Ballmer, the Other Cuban and the $118 Million Infusion: Kawhi-Gate, Part IV”.

Video
Bloomberg News for “Can't Look Away”

Single-Topic Issue
The Atlantic for “The Unfinished Revolution”

Newsletters
Bloomberg News, for three editions of Jason Leopold's "FOIA Files": “How Trump’s Presidency Is Impacting the FOIA”, “FBI Agents, FOIA Staff Pulling All Nighters Reviewing Jeffrey Epstein Files” and “Trump Ordered a Mountain Name Change. It Could Be an Uphill Battle”.

Service Journalism
Wirecutter for three articles from “Wirecutter’s Guide to Data Security”: “Your Data Appeared in a Leak. Now What?” by Max Eddy, “Yes, Your TV Is Probably Spying on You. Your Fridge, Too. Here’s What They Know” by Rachel Cericola, Jon Chase and Lee Neikirk, and “I Tried, and Failed, to Disappear From the Internet” by Max Eddy.

Lifestyle Journalism
Food & Wine for “Out of the Wild” by Kim Cross, “How Wild Salmon Gets From Sea to Plate” in instagram.com/foodandwine, and “I Tracked a Wild Salmon From Sea to Plate—What I Learned Surprised Me” by Kim Cross.

Reporting
The Atavist for “‘There Will Be No Mercy’” by Drew Philp.

Feature Writing
Harper's Magazine for “The Goon Squad” by Daniel Kolitz.

Profile Writing
The New Yorker for “Autocracy Now!” by Ava Kofman.

Columns and Essays
The Believer for “Water Pressure” by Rafia Zakaria.

Reviews and Criticism
New York Review of Architecture for “The Brutalist” by Thomas de Monchaux, “Megalopolis” by Mark Krotov, and “Frickrolled” by Thomas de Monchaux”.

Public Interest
ProPublica for “Now That They’re Free”, published with The Texas Tribune, Alianza Rebelde Investiga and Cazadores de Fake News; “‘I Lost Everything’: Venezuelans Were Rounded Up in a Dramatic Midnight Raid but Never Charged With a Crime”, published with Block Club Chicago and FRONTLINE; and “Status: Venezuelan”.

The winners of the ASME Design, Photography and Illustration Awards, as well as the ASME Readers' Choice Award, had been announced previously. That list includes The Atlantic, Bon Appétit, ELLE, High Country News, National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Road & Track, Rolling Stone, TIME y The Verge.

Today we covered the change Google just made to its search engine to integrate AI more effectively, and our question is — appropriately — about Google.

In the previous edition of "On the Net Today" we asked how many paid subscriptions Netflix had worldwide at the end of 2025. The correct answer was 325 million.

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That's all for today. See you in a week!