Google wants your business to do things inside search
Marie Haynes says approved apps can let people take actions in your service without leaving Google.
Google announced something called the Connected Apps Platform. Marie Haynes, an SEO who follows Google announcements closely, says businesses can now build apps that are used directly inside Google Search and the Gemini app. Once an app is approved and a user links it, they can get to their data and take actions in your service from inside Google's products.
Haynes shared the announcement and said Google gave an example of a connected app being used inside a Gemini conversation. In a follow up post she described how it works for the user. People add apps they trust, and then using that app just becomes part of the conversation they are already having with Gemini.
What this actually changes
For the last 25 years, as Haynes puts it, search was a place where people connected with websites for information. Her read on this news is that functionality is now the thing that matters, not just having a page that ranks.
Your business will be found on Search if it helps people (and their agents) get things done.
She ties it back to a comment from Google chief executive Sundar Pichai that search would become an agent manager, and says this announcement is that idea arriving.
The apps are built using something the posts call MCP. Neither post explains what building one involves, how long approval takes, or who gets approved, so the practical details are not public in these sources yet.
What to do about it
If you run a small business website with articles, services pages and a contact form, there is nothing here to build today. This is a platform for businesses whose customers do things in an account, like booking, ordering, tracking or managing something. If that is not you, do nothing and carry on.
If it is you, the useful move is to work out which single task your customers do most often in your service, because that is the kind of thing a connected app would handle. Read Google's announcement that Haynes linked and see whether the platform is open to businesses your size.
The wider point is worth holding onto even if you skip the tech. Google is building ways for people to finish a job without clicking through to a website. Being found is starting to mean being useful inside Google's own products, not only sitting high on a results page. That does not make your site less important, since the app is still your service, but it is a second place your business can show up.
Your business will be found on Search if it helps people (and their agents) get things done.
Be the person who already knew
One email a day. Under three minutes. You will hear about a Google change before it shows up in your traffic.