Google announced the launch of a new AI-powered search mode that promises deeper, smarter, and more nuanced search results, marking a significant advancement in the integration of generative artificial intelligence into its flagship product.
Speaking at the company’s annual developers’ conference, CEO Sundar Pichai described the innovation as the result of “decades of research” coming to fruition. The new AI mode, now available to users in the United States, offers enhanced reasoning abilities, multi-modality, and supports longer and more complex queries with the option for follow-up questions.
“This is a total reimagining of search,” Pichai said, highlighting how the new AI mode moves beyond the existing AI Overviews feature that shows AI-generated summaries above traditional search results. “You can go further with your searches, asking questions in greater detail and depth,” he added.
Liz Reid, Google’s head of search, said the AI mode searches “across the entire web, going way deeper than traditional search,” offering users a more comprehensive and interactive experience.
Since the introduction of AI Overviews last year, the feature has been adopted by more than 1.5 billion users globally, making Google Search the largest generative AI product in the world, according to Pichai.
The move comes amid intensifying competition from AI-powered platforms such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has incorporated web search capabilities into its chatbot service. Both companies are rapidly expanding their AI tools despite ongoing challenges, including tackling misinformation and developing sustainable business models.
However, experts have raised concerns over the shift away from the conventional “blue links” format towards AI-generated summaries. This shift could substantially reduce the volume of ads served alongside search results, threatening Google’s primary revenue stream, which depends heavily on advertising.
Online publishers, including news organisations and Wikipedia, have voiced apprehensions about potential declines in web traffic as AI-generated answers diminish click-through rates to their sites, affecting their financial sustainability.
Adding to Google’s challenges, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, testified at a federal antitrust trial that Google’s search traffic on Apple devices saw its first decline in over two decades this April. Cue attributed the drop to growing competition from AI-based alternatives such as ChatGPT and Perplexity.
The trial is significant, with a federal judge potentially ordering Google to divest key parts of its operations after a prior ruling declared its search business an illegal monopoly.
At the Google I/O conference, the company also revealed additional AI-driven advancements, including real-time speech translation, virtual clothing try-ons using personal photos, and AI-powered shopping assistants that can autonomously find deals and make purchases.
Moreover, Google announced plans to introduce advanced AI features under a new “Ultra” subscription plan priced at $250 per month, offering paying users access to premium AI capabilities such as AI agents that can perform online tasks independently within Chrome and the Gemini AI app.
