Google revamps search for AI era, debuts coding tools

Google also introduced a new subscription plan through which developers can get more access to the company’s AI tools for US$100 per month. Photo by Karl Mondon/AFP via Getty Images

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Google overhauled the search box to better handle the longer, more complicated queries people bring to chatbots. The firm is also planning to update the search engine with agents that can help people track topics of interest, make reservations and monitor their health, among other things. Some features will initially be limited to paying subscribers.

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The focus on AI is “lighting up every part of the company,” chief executive Sundar Pichai said on stage Tuesday at an annual developer conference in Mountain View, California. “All of the relentless shipping, the rapid advances in technology, it’s been a period of hyper progress.”

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Google has been overhauling its business for the AI age, seeking to win over both everyday customers and corporate users. Pichai said changes to lean more into AI have helped increase usage of search. Popularity of the Gemini app, Google’s AI chatbot, has more than doubled in a year. It now has 900 million monthly users.

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Google is also vying with OpenAI and Anthropic PBC for dominance in AI coding tools, a particularly lucrative market segment. In recent months, Google leaders have grown increasingly worried that the company has fallen behind rivals in AI coding.

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Alphabet shares erased some losses on Tuesday. They were down about 1.7 per cent at US$390.20 at 2:32 p.m. in New York.

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During Tuesday’s event, the company rolled out several new tools for developers to write code using AI and manage agents under the banner of Antigravity, a platform Google released last year following the acquisition of talent and technology from startup Windsurf in a us$2.4 billion deal. Google also unveiled a new version of its flagship AI model, Gemini 3.5 Flash, billed as its best model yet for coding.

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Google said the model is faster by certain measures than rival offerings, and that it could be used more cheaply. Google said the “pro” version of the model, which offers better performance at a premium price, is being used within the company and would launch to the public next month.

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“I think Google has a chance to catch up on AI coding,” said Ang Li, a former DeepMind researcher who is now the chief executive of Simular, a startup developing AI agents. “It has a history of producing steady and slow wins.”

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Google is weaving coding features into Google Search as well. People who pay for a subscription to one of Google’s AI plans will be able to create custom dashboards in search to manage tasks such as planning a wedding or getting into a new fitness routine.

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The company also introduced a new subscription plan through which developers can get more access to the company’s AI tools for US$100 per month.

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With staggered launches like this, the gulf between the free and paid versions of Google search is growing. But Nick Fox, Google’s senior vice president for knowledge and information, said the company is still focused on serving people who don’t pay for the product. “We’re incredibly committed to search being available to billions of users across the world,” Fox said in an interview.