Google (GOOG, GOOGL) is releasing its high-powered AI Mode to users across the US via its Labs testing service as it works to fight off challenges to its search throne from the likes of OpenAI and Perplexity, among others.
The option, which users must opt into, appears below the search bar in Google Search alongside features like Images, Videos, and Shopping, is a kind of conversational AI more closely aligned with ChatGPT, Meta’s (META) new Meta AI, and Google’s own Gemini.
The difference here is that because AI Mode is accessible directly from the Google Search page, it will appear in front of millions of users who already use Google as their regular search engine and, importantly, their browser homepage.
“Really this lets you ask whatever’s on your mind and have Google Search help you find helpful information,” Google Search vice president of product Robby Stein explained.
“It also allows you to ask follow-up questions, so you can have a back-and-forth. And it allows you to also use any modality. So you can use voice to talk to it, or you can take a photo and ask a question about that as well,” Stein added.
Google already offers generative AI via its AI Overviews, which appear above results in its standard Google Search option, but AI Mode strips out the company’s traditional list of ranked blue links in responses, instead providing a variety of bullet-point lists and sidebars with links to the sites the service pulls information from.
Like ChatGPT and Perplexity, however, AI Mode’s design could prove problematic for publishers who rely on referral links from sites like Google Search to drive traffic to their sites.
According to Stein, AI Mode pulls information together using Google Search’s real-time systems and the company’s Gemini models to provide users with answers to their queries. That means you can ask questions about your favorite TV shows, plan trips, or ask what the weather will be like over the weekend.
AI Mode takes advantage of AI reasoning. Stein says this means when you ask a question, the AI model makes a plan to answer it, and then works through a series of ways to answer your query using things like the open web, Google’s knowledge graph, and location data.
“It makes this really powerful and rich and hopefully accurate response, because of all of the high-quality information systems that this is built on, which obviously Google search has been building up for 25 years now,” Stein explained.
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In addition to typing questions for AI Mode, you can also use voice and image search. And while asking a question is helpful, visual search is certainly more fun. You can point your phone at an object like a bookshelf and capture a shot of your books, then ask AI Mode what other books you might like based on your own.
During my brief testing, I found AI Mode generally useful, but it did run into trouble answering questions from time to time, including queries about how to play certain video games. But it responded properly each time I reloaded my browser.
Google is investing billions into its AI capabilities, and investors are keen to see it pay off. During the company’s first quarter earnings call last week, CEO Sundar Pichai announced that 1.5 billion users access AI Overviews each month, though those generally appear when you perform a standard search.
It will be especially interesting to see how AI Mode performs among users, considering it’s a separate option from the general search panel, meaning people will have to deliberately access the service.
Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.
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