Google is turning Search upside down. Again. Nearly a year after the company launched AI overviews for all U.S. residents, it’s getting ready to add a dedicated AI tab to its search engine. AI Mode is powered by the Gemini 2.0 model, which Google has trained to find and organize information across the web. Search results are then displayed in an interface designed to make it easy to ask follow-up questions. In short, it’s a fitting response to ChatGPT Search.
“The goal and vision of [AI Mode] is to give people the ability to search for anything effortlessly,” says Robbie Stein, vice president of product for Google Search. According to Stein, AI Mode came about because of feedback Google received from users of AI Overviews. He says that since the feature launched to more than 1 billion users, people have been telling Google that they want more AI-generated summaries in Search; In fact, some users add “AI” to the end of their searches to prompt Google to respond with an AI-powered overview.
AI Mode gives these people just that. When you use this feature, Gemini uses a “query branching” technique to run multiple simultaneous searches across different topics and data sources. It will also use Google’s own information systems, including the company’s Knowledge Graph, to augment the information it finds online.
During testing, Stein said, Google saw that people used AI mode differently than traditional search engines. On average, testers took about twice as long to type queries and asked follow-up questions about a quarter of the time. “We’re seeing people ask more complex questions, and they’re also going back and forth to clarify, learn, and dig deeper.”
If you got a sense of déjà vu when you read about AI Mode, it’s because it offers some of the same features you’ll find in Google’s Deep Research tool. Like that feature, AI Mode will create a plan before attempting to answer your query, but you won’t have to wait half an hour or even a few minutes for a response. “I think our intention for this version is to offer an experience that people can use every day, on the go, and be able to get a response while they’re waiting, relatively quickly,” Stein says.
If you’re a Google One AI Premium subscriber, you can start testing AI Mode today on desktop and mobile. For everyone else, Google is offering a few improvements to AI Reviews to help you get through this period.
When the company announced Gemini 2.0 late last year, it said that improving AI Reviews in the new model was a priority. If you live in the US, the next time you use Search to find an answer to a math or coding question, the platform will tap into Gemini 2.0 to generate an accompanying AI review. It will also use the system for multimodal input.
Stein says that users can expect faster, better answers as a result, and the company will enable this model for a wider range of queries in the future.
Separately, Google is making AI reviews available to more people. In almost all markets where they are available, teenagers can already start using the feature, and you no longer need to be signed in to your Google account to view the reviews.
