AI Takes Center Stage in Google Search with New Features

Google is cranking up the AI dial once more. On Wednesday, the company announced that AI Overviews—those auto-generated summaries that pop up in search results—will be expanding to even more types of queries. And this time, it's not just for logged-in users. Whether you have a Google account or not, expect to see AI-generated answers taking over more of your search experience.


But that's not even the biggest update. Google is also testing something called AI Mode, a search-centric chatbot that could completely reshape how people use Google Search. Think of it as Google's answer to AI-powered search engines like Perplexity or ChatGPT Search. Right now, AI Mode is in a limited testing phase, only available to users who subscribe to Google One AI Premium. Even then, it's not enabled by default—you have to turn it on in the Labs section of Google Search.

The premise behind AI Mode is simple: some users might actually prefer AI-generated results over traditional search links. If you activate AI Mode, your searches won't return the usual list of links and snippets. Instead, you'll get an AI-generated response built from Google's search index, sprinkled with a few supporting links. The experience feels a lot like chatting with Gemini or other AI chatbots, but it's fine-tuned for search, meaning it can pull in real-time data and interact more directly with the web.

Google is also upgrading its AI capabilities with the Gemini 2.0 model, making AI Overviews more useful for complex topics like math, coding, and logic-based queries. According to Robby Stein, a VP of product on the Search team, AI-powered search is encouraging people to ask Google more detailed and nuanced questions—queries that might have been trickier to answer before.

Of course, the elephant in the room is what all this means for websites. Google has long operated on a simple trade-off: it sends users to other sites in exchange for indexing their content. But if AI-generated answers keep people from clicking through to those sites, that balance could shift dramatically. Stein insists that's not the case, claiming that AI Overviews help users understand context before clicking through, leading to longer engagement on websites.

For now, Google isn't turning search into a full-on chatbot. But with AI creeping into every corner of the search experience, it's clear that the way we Google is evolving fast.

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