May 21, 2025
Google has officially begun rolling out its highly anticipated AI Mode to all users in the United States, marking one of the most significant upgrades to the search engine in the past decade. Announced yesterday during Google I/O 2025, this powerful new search experience represents a fundamental shift from traditional information retrieval to intelligent assistance.
What Is Google AI Mode?
AI Mode offers an end-to-end AI search experience powered by a custom version of Gemini 2.5, Google’s most advanced AI model to date. Unlike standard search results, AI Mode breaks down your question into subtopics and issues multiple queries simultaneously on your behalf, diving deeper into web content to provide more comprehensive answers.
Users can access AI Mode through a new dedicated tab appearing in Search and in the search bar of the Google app over the coming weeks. No sign-up is required for U.S. users, as this feature graduates from its earlier testing phase in Google Labs.
Key Features Rolling Out Now
The initial AI Mode rollout includes:
- Advanced reasoning capabilities: Provides more detailed and nuanced answers to complex questions
- Multimodal understanding: Processes and responds to text, images, and other forms of content
- Follow-up functionality: Maintains context through conversation
- Web integration: Includes helpful links to source material across the web
- Gemini 2.5 integration: Powers both AI Mode and AI Overviews with Google’s most intelligent model
Coming Soon: Advanced Features
Several groundbreaking capabilities were also showcased at I/O, scheduled to arrive in the coming months:
Deep Search
For research-intensive questions, Deep Search can issue hundreds of searches simultaneously, reasoning across various information sources to create expert-level, fully-cited reports in minutes.
Search Live
Building on Google Lens technology, Search Live enables real-time visual interaction. Users can point their camera at objects and engage in back-and-forth conversations about what they’re seeing.
Agentic Capabilities
AI Mode will soon perform tasks on users’ behalf, starting with purchasing event tickets, making restaurant reservations, and booking local appointments. Google has partnered with Ticketmaster, StubHub, Resy, and Vagaro to streamline these processes.
AI Shopping Partner
The new shopping experience combines Gemini capabilities with Google’s Shopping Graph, allowing users to virtually try on billions of apparel items and even request automated checkout via Google Pay.
Personalized Results
Future updates will offer tailored suggestions based on past searches, with optional integration of other Google services, starting with Gmail. This feature will remain under user control, with easy options to connect or disconnect it.
Custom Data Visualization
AI Mode will analyze complex datasets and create custom interactive charts and graphs for specific queries, initially focusing on sports and finance data.
Performance Impact
According to Elizabeth Reid, VP and Head of Search at Google, AI Overviews—the predecessor to AI Mode—has driven over a 10% increase in Google usage for applicable queries in major markets like the U.S. and India. The company also claims that AI Overviews delivers “the fastest AI responses in the industry.”
How to Access AI Mode
The feature is rolling out today for all users in the United States, with no special sign-up required. Look for the new AI Mode tab in Search and in the Google app search bar over the coming weeks.
To gain early access to upcoming advanced features, users can join Google Labs and activate the AI Mode experiment.
This article is based on information from Google’s May 20, 2025 announcement at I/O.
