Google May Remove the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ Button
“I’m Feeling Lucky” has been Google’s core search feature since the company launched in 1998. Most of us, of course, do the typical search, scrolling through various links until we find the URL we’re looking for. But if you’re sure your search query has a clear purpose, I’m Feeling Lucky can point you right there.
I’ll admit, in all my years of Googling, I haven’t used this button much. Truth be told, I almost never go to google.com—as soon as browsers integrated Google search with the address bar, I started searching directly from there. But whenever I land on Google’s home page, it’s nice to see that I always have that option—if I’m really lucky.
However, this may change soon. According to The Verge , some Google users are missing the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. In its place is something completely different: AI mode.
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Google first introduced AI mode back in March . Don’t confuse this with AI reviews , which are AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of some Google searches. Instead, AI mode turns Google Search into a chatbot of sorts, allowing the user to ask multi-part questions in one go. This feature is designed to combine multiple search queries into one complex query.
For example, you could ask the AI mode something like, “When is the best time to book a flight to Hawaii and what should I pack for my trip?” You then get a breakdown of each question in your query: “Best Time to Book Flights”, “Tips for Booking Flights”, “Essential Things to Pack for Hawaii” with links to sources you can check for yourself. If you’ve ever used an AI chatbot like Gemini or ChatGPT for web search, it’s very similar – right down to the warning that “AI responses may contain errors.”
The AI mode has not yet fully rolled out (it looks like it will be available to Google Labs testers first) and does not replace I’m Feeling Lucky for all users who see it. For example, in my personal Google account, I still see the “I’m feeling lucky” message. The AI mode is simply located at the right end of the search bar. But the fact that Google is experimenting with replacing the outdated button with yet another AI feature is disappointing.
There’s some irony in replacing the “I’m feeling lucky” button with an AI mode: if you rely on AI for your searches, you’re probably feeling lucky, since AI systems can either make mistakes or make things up altogether — as Google’s disastrous deployment of AI reviews proved . In fact, as AI models evolve , they are “hallucinating” more than ever , and no one really knows why.
Use AI to help you search the web as you please – just understand what you’re getting into.