Google is rolling out a major upgrade to its Search experience with the introduction of “AI Mode,” a feature designed to offer users more conversational and comprehensive search experiences.
Unveiled at the Google I/O 2025 conference, the new AI Mode aims to transform traditional search by offering detailed, personalised AI-generated responses to complex queries – all within the Search interface.
“AI Mode is our most powerful AI search, with more advanced reasoning and multimodality, and the ability to go deeper through follow-up questions and helpful links to the web,” Elizabeth Reid, VP, Head of Google Search, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.
What Is AI Mode?
AI Mode is an experimental feature that takes search to the next level with advanced reasoning, multimodal understanding, and deep integration of Gemini 2.5, Google’s most capable AI model to date. It allows users to ask complex questions and receive synthesized answers, integrating information from various sources.
Enhanced Features and Capabilities
AI Mode introduces several advanced search features:
Query Fan-Out: This technique allows AI Mode to break down a question into multiple sub-questions and run hundreds of searches in real-time simultaneously on your behalf. In other words, instead of getting just one answer, AI Mode pulls together a richer, incredible, hyper-relevant content of what the web has to offer, all tailored to match your question.
You will see a new AI Mode tab in Search and in the Google app, which allows you to go right into this smarter search experience with no Labs sign-up required.
Deep Search: Google is bringing deep research capabilities into AI Mode with Deep Search. It uses the same query fan-out technique but goes even further with hundreds of searches behind the scenes.
It pulls out hundreds of searches across the web to generate an expert-level, fully-cited report summary in minutes, saving you hours of research. Think of it as having a digital research assistant that never sleeps.
Real-Time Help With Search Live: Taking things up a notch, Search Live allows you to use your camera to talk with Search about what you are seeing, in real-time. This builds on the massive success of Google Lens, already used by over 1.5 billion people every month.
“For example, if you’re feeling stumped on a project and need some help, simply tap the “Live” icon in AI Mode or in Lens, point your camera, and ask your question. Just like that, Search becomes a learning partner that can see what you see — explaining tricky concepts and offering suggestions along the way, as well as links to different resources that you can explore — like websites, videos, forums and more,” Reid added.
Data Visualization and Agentic Tasks: AI Mode will now generate custom charts and graphs on the fly. It uses its agentic capabilities (powered by Project Mariner) to take the busywork off your plate.
For instance, if you ask, “Find 2 affordable tickets for this Saturday’s Reds game in the lower level”, it will launch a query fan-out, scanning multiple sites to evaluate hundreds of ticket options in real time — checking prices, availability, and even taking care of the form-filling for you.
Smarter Shopping With AI Help: Planning a wardrobe upgrade or gift hunt? The new AI mode shopping experience combines Gemini’s model capabilities with Google’s Shopping Graph. It helps you browse for inspiration, think through considerations, narrow down products, and even try on clothes virtually using just a photo.
Once you have found the perfect item, Google’s agentic checkout feature can even handle the purchase on your behalf, with your approval, using Google Pay.
Personalization Built In
AI Mode will also offer personalized results based on your search history, and — if you opt in — it can pull more of your personal context from other Google services like Gmail. For example, if you’re heading to Nashville and ask for “things to do in Nashville this weekend with friends, we’re big foodies who like music,” it might suggest music venues or restaurants based on your past preferences and reservations.
Most importantly, Google promises full control: You will always be notified when your personal context is used, and you can turn it off at any time.
Availability
Currently, AI Mode has started rolling out for everyone in the U.S from May 20. Further, the new features showcased at I/O will be coming to Labs users for AI Mode in the coming weeks and months. Users who want to be the first one to test out the experimental tools, can turn on the AI Mode experiment in Labs.
