In March Google started testing AI Mode for Search with a limited subset of users through Google Labs. Then, earlier this month, it expanded its reach to all Google Labs users in the US. Today at its I/O developer conference, Google has just announced that AI Mode has graduated and is no longer an experimental feature.
Instead, it’s rolling out to all Google Search users in the US starting today. This will take a few weeks as per usual with Google’s software rollouts, and when you get it you’ll see a new tab for AI Mode in Search and in the search bar in the Google app on mobile devices.
It will be the leftmost tab, to the left of even the “All” tab. Google says AI Mode is its “most powerful AI search” (not sure compared to what), and it has “more advanced reasoning and multimodality” as well as “the ability to go deeper through follow-up questions and helpful links to the web” (again, compared to what? – we’re not told, unfortunately).
Google promises a lot, including “hyper-relevant” results, and also says that AI Mode is where it will first “bring Gemini’s frontier capabilities”, whatever that means. Many features and capabilities from AI Mode will graduate right into the default search, so soon enough you just won’t be able to escape it at all (for a while you still can if you just ignore the AI Mode tab).
Starting this week, a “custom version” (whatever that means) of Gemini 2.5 will be brought to Search for both AI Mode and AI Overviews. There will also be Deep Search in AI Mode, which will “reason across disparate pieces of information, and create an expert-level fully-cited report in just minutes, saving you hours of research”. Of course, you’ll then need hours to verify that it’s not outright lying to you as AI models tend to do.
There will also be a Live icon in AI Mode which will let you point your camera at stuff and ask questions, similarly to how Gemini Live with camera and screen sharing works.
AI Mode will be able to book event tickets, restaurant reservations, and local appointments for you, starting with companies like Ticketmaster, StubHub, Resy, and Vagaro. AI Mode will even buy clothes for you once you’ve found something you like by trying it on virtually.
You will be able to connect other Google apps, starting with Gmail, to AI Mode, to let it offer personalized context. It will also offer personalized suggestions based on your past searches. And finally, AI Mode will analyze complex datasets and create graphics that “bring them to life”, all customized to your query.
While AI Mode itself is rolling out, all of the AI Mode features we talked about are only going to start appearing “in the coming weeks and months” via Google Labs.
