new experiment in Search Labs that lets you ask whatever is on your mind to get an AI-powered response and keep exploring with follow-up questions and helpful web links.

Google Search has been rapidly evolving with the integration of AI, and a major new feature that has been rolling out is AI Mode, building upon the earlier AI Overviews (formerly known as Search Generative Experience, or SGE).

Here’s a breakdown of this new feature:

What is Google Search AI Mode?

AI Mode is Google’s most powerful AI search experience, designed to provide comprehensive, AI-powered responses to complex and nuanced queries. It goes beyond simply listing links, aiming to provide direct answers, summaries, and deeper exploration capabilities.

Key Features and How it Works:

  • Advanced Reasoning and Multimodality: AI Mode is powered by a custom version of Google’s Gemini 2.5 model, which allows for more advanced reasoning, thinking, and multimodal capabilities. This means you can interact with it using:
    • Text: Type in your complex questions as usual.
    • Voice: Tap the microphone icon and ask your query verbally, which is useful for long, detailed questions or when on the go.
    • Images (Google Lens Integration): You can snap a photo or upload an image and ask questions about what you see. For example, you could take a picture of a plant and ask for care instructions.
  • Comprehensive AI-Powered Responses: Instead of just showing a list of blue links, AI Mode synthesizes information from various sources on the web to provide a structured and detailed answer directly within the search results.
  • “Query Fan-Out” Technique: To provide these comprehensive answers, AI Mode uses a “query fan-out” technique. This breaks down your original complex question into subtopics and simultaneously performs a multitude of related searches on your behalf, diving deeper into the web to find relevant content.
  • Follow-up Questions: AI Mode is designed to be conversational. You can ask follow-up questions to dig deeper into a topic, and the AI will retain context from your previous questions, making the search experience more interactive and tailored.
  • Helpful Links and Sources: While it provides AI-generated responses, AI Mode still provides links to the underlying web content and sources that informed the AI’s answer. This allows users to verify information, explore different perspectives, and delve further into the topic.
  • Real-time Information: AI Mode can tap into fresh, real-time sources like the Knowledge Graph, information about the real world, and shopping data for billions of products.
  • AI Overviews Expansion: AI Mode expands on the capabilities of AI Overviews, which provide quick AI-generated summaries at the top of some search results. AI Mode offers more advanced reasoning and interactive capabilities.

Availability and Access:

AI Mode was initially introduced as an experiment in the U.S. and has since been rolling out to more regions, including India (as of late June 2025). It’s typically available as an experiment within Google Labs. Users can generally access it by:

  • Visiting labs.google.com and opting into the “AI Mode” experiment.
  • Searching for something on Google and looking for an “AI Mode” tab or button.
  • Using the Google app on Android and iOS, where AI Mode may appear on the home screen or within the search bar.

Purpose and Impact:

Google’s AI Mode aims to make finding information even more effortless, especially for complex or nuanced queries that previously required multiple searches and manual synthesis. It’s part of a broader vision to bring Google’s advanced AI capabilities directly into the search experience, transforming how users discover and interact with information online. While it offers significant benefits in speed and comprehensiveness, Google emphasizes that it’s an experimental feature and may sometimes make mistakes, encouraging users to provide feedback.