Google Bets on ‘AI Mode’ With New Features, Global Launch
After months of testing and sign-ups, Google Search thinks its AI mode is ready to go live . It will be available in 180 countries worldwide starting today (though only in English), including the US, UK, and India.
AI Mode is a Google Search feature powered by LLM where, instead of regular links, you get a response from the Gemini AI model. You could previously think of it as a faster, lighter version of Gemini built directly into Google Search, but Google is now adding agent-like features and personalized responses to AI Mode.
AI mode becomes personal and global
If AI mode wasn’t already available in your country, it will now be available as a new tab in the Google search toolbar. Fortunately, it’s not the default for all searches, at least not yet. Instead, if you ask Google a question that Google thinks Gemini can help with, you’ll see the usual AI overview at the top of the search results, and at the end, a “Dive deeper into AI mode” button that takes you into AI mode when you click it.
As with AI reviews, there’s no way to disable the AI Mode tab, but there are a few tricks you can use to ignore it. If you always want to go straight to the standard search results, you can use a special URL to bypass the AI review or one of these AI-blocking extensions .
In the US, for users who opted in to the “AI Mode” experiment in Labs , AI Mode results will start to be personalized based on your preferences and interests. Google is starting to personalize food-related queries, including restaurants and cafes. If you ask it to recommend places to eat, it can look at previous conversations, search results, and Maps data to show you relevant results. Speaking of results, Google is also making it easier to share AI Mode results and collaborate on conversations with a new “Share a link” feature.
Of course, like Gemini, you can turn off personalization here too. To turn this feature off completely, go to the “Search personalization” section in your Google account settings.
Agents go into AI mode in search
Google is also starting to add AI-powered agents that can take actions for you. However, for now, agents are only available in the US and require a subscription to Google’s $200 AI Ultra plan. If you want to try out the feature, you can enable it in the AI-powered agent capabilities section of the Google Labs experiment .
The feature will first help you book a table at a restaurant, and will expand to booking appointments at local services and event tickets in the future. Google gave a big demo of the feature at Google I/O , so I’m curious to see how it will work now that it’s available.
To use it, ask Google AI Mode to help you book a table at a restaurant and specify a few preferences, such as the size of your party, your preferred dates and times, your location, and the type of cuisine you want to try. AI Mode will determine availability and suggest options. AI Mode will then also direct you to a booking page. At the moment, it can’t do the last step, which is to complete the reservation, probably due to privacy. To do this, Google uses a live web browser, partner integrations, Google Maps, and its own knowledge graph. Google’s AI agents currently integrate with OpenTable, Resy, Tock, Ticketmaster, StubHub, SeatGeek, Booksy, and more partners are planned for the future.