More Artificial Intelligence to Appear in Google Search Results
When Google introduced AI reviews for search last year , it didn’t go so well. The company’s AI made some pretty serious mistakes in its results , many of which went viral. In response, Google withdrew the feature, redesigned it, and gradually reintroduced it to the masses. You probably noticed.
This month, Google continues its efforts to add AI to search —whether you want it or not . First, the company is releasing a new version of AI Reviews based on Gemini 2.0 , the company’s latest AI model. Google says the update will help with “more complex questions” such as programming, math, and multimodal (prompts using different types of media) queries. Additionally, teens can now see AI reviews, just like users without a Google account. Hooray.
Introducing AI Mode
But the company is currently testing a larger artificial intelligence announcement from Google: AI Mode. You see, Google says they’ve heard from “power users” that they’re looking for AI answers on more Google searches. In response, AI mode allows you to ask the AI multi-part questions that offer more complex reasoning, thinking, and multimodal functionality.
On paper, this sounds like a more complex overview of AI, but it’s a little more nuanced. AI mode is a separate tab in search that turns the user interface into something more than you’d expect from ChatGPT or Gemini. Google says this experience should combine what would have been multiple search queries into one: you ask the AI something complex, it will reason (showing off its thinking as it goes along) and provide a full answer with multiple results, statements and summaries, citing its sources for each of its generations.
Google says the AI mode uses a “query branching” technique to generate results. Essentially, it searches for multiple related objects at once, combining those results into the response you see at the end. The AI mode uses many different data points for its results, including web results, Google Knowledge Graph , and purchase data.
Google uses the following query to demonstrate this approach: “What is the difference in sleep tracking features between a smart ring, smart watch, and tracking mat?” AI Mode supposedly takes this multi-part question, develops a multi-step “plan” to conduct a series of searches to find information, and changes that plan according to the results.
Obviously, this work is still a work in progress (since AI search is used everywhere), so Google says that the AI mode won’t always work correctly. In fact, you can simply see the result of web links only if the program thinks that the AI result is not good enough.
I’m not sure how useful the AI mode actually is, especially compared to searching with Gemini or traditional Google search ( especially without AI ). I’ll have to wait until Google lets me try this feature out for myself before drawing any conclusions. However, based on my current experience with AI, I assume that I will prefer the regular search method.
How to Try Google’s AI Mode
If you have an interest in using Google’s new AI mode, there are several ways to get into it. First, if you’re a Google One AI Premium subscriber, you’ll be one of the first invited to try out the AI mode in the labs.
However, if you are not a subscriber, you will need to join the waitlist. Sign in to your Google account, then go to Google Labs . Under Introducing the AI Mode Experiment, select Join the Waitlist. Google will then redirect you to a page advertising the feature, where you can confirm that you’re on the waitlist.