AI mode in Google search gets new features
Google Search introduced AI Mode back in March as an experimental feature that more or less turns your search experience into a conversation with a chatbot. Now AI Mode is available to all Google Labs users in the US, with no waiting list. If you want to activate it, you can go to Labs. And “in the coming weeks,” says Google, “a small percentage of people in the US” will see a new tab in search without going through Labs.
Over the next week, visual place and product maps will be introduced in AI mode, allowing you to tap to get more details. Maps for things like restaurants, salons, and stores show ratings, reviews, and store hours, while for products, you’ll see stores with real-time pricing, images, shipping details, and local inventory.
The AI mode expands search with “more advanced reasoning, reasoning and multimodal capabilities,” according to Google. This tab appears at the top left, even to the left of the All tab. There you can ask questions and then follow up with follow-up questions and “helpful web links.”
The AI mode uses a customized version of Gemini 2.0 and is “particularly helpful for questions that require further investigation, comparison and “Conclusions need to be made,” says Google. The selling point is that you can “ask nuanced questions that may have previously required multiple searches,” and then you have to check all the answers with multiple searches if accuracy is most important to you.
Google AI Overviews / AI Overviews and AI Mode / AI Mode
Alongside AI Mode are AI Overviews are also already available in the USA. They are based on Gemini 2.0 and are intended to help with more advanced questions about programming, higher mathematics and multimodal queries. Google promises faster and higher quality answers.
According to Google, over a billion people already use AI overviews. This is not a question of choice, as it is not a service that you use voluntarily. Google simply displays AI Overviews whether you want it or not, and has just expanded the service to teens and people who are not logged into their Google Account.
The appropriate disclaimer is also included: “Although we aim for AI answers in search to present information objectively based on what is available on the Internet, it is possible that some answers may inadvertently adopt a persona or reflect a particular opinion.” However, these points will be resolved in the next test phase. Also coming soon are more visual responses with images and videos, more attractive formatting, and “new ways to get helpful web content,” whatever that means.
