Google Search received a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature dubbed AI Mode on Wednesday. The Mountain View-based tech giant was reportedly internally testing this feature last month, and has now rolled it out to a limited number of users. The AI Mode will offer responses on complex topics, and search queries that are multi-faceted and would normally take a user multiple searches to find the information. Additionally, the company is also upgrading AI Overviews with the Gemini 2.0 model. The new version of the feature is currently only available in the US.
Google Search Gets AI Mode
In a blog post, the tech giant detailed the new AI Mode for Google Search. This new interface is said to offer “more advanced reasoning, thinking and multimodal capabilities,” and will act as an expansion to the existing AI Overviews.
Currently, the AI Mode is available to select users via Google Labs as an early experiment. The company also said that it will begin inviting Google One AI Premium subscribers to try out the experience in Labs. There is no word on if or when it will roll out to regular Google Search users.
After opting in for the AI Mode experience, eligible users will see the feature as a filter on the search results page. AI Mode is placed in the first position, followed by All, Images, News, Maps, and more. So, after a user runs a search query normally on Google, they will be able to switch to the new mode by tapping the filter.
Google said that the AI Mode is powered by a custom Gemini 2.0 model and is useful for queries that require deeper exploration, comparisons, or reasoning. It allows users to ask follow-up questions, and shows multimodal results including images, tables, and more. It also lists websites that can help the user get additional information.
The AI tool uses a “query fan-out” technique to run multiple related searches simultaneously across sub-topics, and looks through several data sources to provide a comprehensive result in an “easy-to-understand format,” the company said. Some of the data sources used by the AI Mode include web content, knowledge graph, shopping data, and general information about the real world.
As per the company, AI Mode is equipped with novel approaches to improve the factuality of the responses. However, Google acknowledged that there is a possibility that some responses could reflect a particular opinion. Those with access to the feature can provide feedback and help the company improve the tool. Additionally, the tech giant highlighted that AI Mode will only show web search results in areas where it does not have a high confidence in helpfulness and quality.
AI Overviews Upgraded With New AI Model
Google is also updating its AI Overviews feature in Search, which offers a snapshot summary of search results. It will now be powered by Gemini 2.0, and can now answer more complex questions around coding, advanced mathematics, as well as multimodal queries. This new version of AI Overviews is currently available in the US.
Additionally, the company is also expanding the product to more users. AI Overviews will also be available to teenagers (using a teen account). These AI-generated summaries will also show up for users who are not signed into their Google accounts.
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