- Google is widely rolling out AI Mode in Google Search for free in the US. You no longer have to join the waiting list.
- However, you must enable AI Mode in Google Labs to turn on the feature.
- AI Mode is different from AI Overviews, as you can ask descriptive questions and follow up to explore further.
Google has developed a dedicated ‘AI Mode’ for Google Search that works just like Perplexity. It allows you to ask open-ended questions in Search and follow up with additional questions to explore topics further. This dedicated AI mode in Google Search is now widely rolling out in the US for free. Google has removed the waitlist for this feature.
AI Mode is powered by a custom version of the Gemini 2.0 model, and it’s different from AI Overviews. AI Overviews mostly summarize webpages, whereas AI Mode grounds Gemini with web results to offer a tailored response. In addition, you can ask follow-up questions in AI Mode, which is not available in AI Overviews.
The biggest change to Google Search’s UI is that AI Mode has a new tab and it’s available in the first position, besides the “All” tab. Currently, the “All” tab is the default Search page, but in the future, Google may change the default search page to “AI Mode”.
You can head to labs.google.com/search/aimode and enable AI mode for free. In addition, Google is rolling out product cards in AI Mode, most likely to compete with ChatGPT Shopping, which was unveiled recently. With competition from ChatGPT Search and Perplexity, Google is now embracing AI for web search results.
