Google Brings an AI Mode to Search

Google announced Wednesday that it is experimenting with a new AI mode in Search that expands on the existing AI Overviews feature with advanced reasoning, thinking and multimodal capabilities for answering much more complex questions.

“As we’ve rolled out AI Overviews, we’ve heard from power users that they want AI responses for even more of their searches,” Google vice president Robby Stein says. (Though I feel like the feedback was the opposite of that.) “So today, we’re introducing an early experiment in Labs: AI Mode. This new Search mode expands what AI Overviews can do with more advanced reasoning, thinking and multimodal capabilities, so you can get help with even your toughest questions. You can ask anything on your mind and get a helpful AI-powered response with the ability to go further with follow-up questions and helpful web links.”

AI Mode uses a custom version of the recently released Gemini 2.0 that is optimized to answer questions that may require further exploration, comparisons and reasoning. You can ask it complex questions that would have previously required multiple queries and it will respond with a detailed response that includes links where you can go and learn even more.

At a high level, this feature appears to implement the orchestration capabilities I’ve been looking for since last year. That is, it works across multiple models with different capabilities plus Google’s vaunted Search results so that it can be both accurate and up-to-date. Google calls this process a “query fan-out,” it performs multiple relate d searches concurrently across subtopics and multiple data sources. It then brings those results together to provide an easy-to-understand response, with more breadth and depth of information than a traditional Google Search.

For now, AI Mode is limited to Google One AI Premium subscribers who are invited to opt-in, and if you’re invited, you can enable the feature in Search Labs. Google will assess the feedback, improve the product, and expand availability in time.