At Google's I/O developer conference, the company announced that it's an artificial intelligence company--that is, with a search core. True to that mission, Google's latest product release of a job search engine is right in line.

Curious about jobs around you?

Here's how you get the most out of jobs search version one.

Search for a job. Use the word "job" in your search. Yep, this tool kicks in when you search for a job in the regular search box, like movie ticket search and some others. Try it with a query like, "[your type of job] near [your city.]" You can use voice search, too.

"Just like when you ask for movie show times...when you look for jobs we... organize the information on the Web about jobs and show it to you directly," says Google product manager Nick Zakrasek.

Google pulls up what it's found by indexing all the major job sites, like LinkedIn, WayUp, CareerBuilder and Monster.



Where's the fancy AI? Well, this is a version one product so it's pretty basic. It's using machine learning to compare job listings, find duplicates, and de duplicate, so you don't find fifteen postings of the same job. Helpful, but not transformational.

Then, the job search borrows an element from Google Alerts, another basic search feature. Basically, after you craft the perfect job search query, you can save that as an alert that updates you when new jobs match the query. It's convenient. Sort of like finding great flights to your favorite destination.

So is the Google job search tool, even with its smarter back end, going to revolutionize job seeking?

Not perhaps at the moment, but if you're interested in staying upwardly mobile, it certainly makes it easier to keep your fingers on the pulse of the job scene in your space. Plus, Google does a good job of incremental product development, so I'm expecting new features added to jobs to make the search tool more, well, intelligent.

Some possible ways this product could go include:

1) Providing two-way visibility into who looks like a good fit for the jobs, back to the recruiters. (You know Google's always been good at working both sides of search.)

2) Adding salary range data to the search, which is currently not indexed.

3) Expect Google's new AI investor team to consider AI issues around HR and recruiting to "bolt onto" the product.

4) Taking in the social cues of your work history and experience (via LinkedIn, Facebook, Gmail) and your contacts to make recommendations on jobs that you'd be most likely to be competitive for, given the people you already know.

It's this last point that really brings out the two-edged sword of artificial intelligence.