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Google on Tuesday unleashed another wave of artificial intelligence technology to accelerate a year-long makeover of its search engine that is changing the way people get information and curtailing the flow of internet traffic to websites.
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The next phase outlined at Google’s annual developers conference includes releasing a new “AI mode” option in the United States. The feature makes interacting with Google’s search engine more like having a conversation with an expert capable of answering questions on just about any topic imaginable.
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AI mode is being offered to all comers in the U.S. just two-and-half-months after the company began testing with a limited Labs division audience.
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Google is also feeding its latest AI model Gemini 2.5, into its search algorithms and will soon begin testing other AI features, such as the ability to automatically buy tickets to concerts and conduct searches through live video feeds.
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The expansion builds upon a transformation that began a year ago with the introduction of conversational summaries called “AI overviews” that have been increasingly appearing at the top of its results page and eclipsing its traditional rankings of web links.
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About 1.5 billion people now regularly engage with “AI overviews,” according to Google, and most users are now entering longer and more complex queries.
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“What all this progress means is that we are in a new phase of the AI platform shift, where decades of research are now becoming reality for people all over the world,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said before a packed crowd in an amphitheater near the company’s Mountain View, California, headquarters.
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Although Pichai and other Google executives predicted AI overviews would trigger more searches and ultimately more clicks to other sites, it hasn’t worked out that way so far, according to the findings of search optimization firm BrightEdge.
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Clickthrough rates from Google’s search results have declined by nearly 30% during the past year, according to BrightEdge’s recently released study, which attributed the decrease to people becoming increasingly satisfied with AI overviews.
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The decision to make AI mode broadly available after a relatively short test period reflects Google’s confidence that the technology won’t habitually spew misinformation that tarnishes its brand’s reputation, and acknowledges the growing competition from other AI-powered search options from the likes of ChatGPT and Perplexity.
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The rapid rise of AI alternatives emerged as a recurring theme in legal proceedings that could force Google to dismantle parts of its internet empire after a federal judge last year declared its search engine to be an illegal monopoly.
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In testimony during a trial earlier this month, longtime Apple executive Eddy Cue said Google searches done through the iPhone maker’s Safari browser have been declining because more people are leaning on AI-powered alternatives.
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