What is Google's AI Mode? How to use new tool in UK
AI Mode will start to appear as a tab on the Google Search results page and in the Google app for Android and Apple smartphones from Tuesday (July 29), and will be available to all UK users over the next few days.
But what exactly is AI Mode and how can you use it? Let's find out.
Our most powerful AI search is now rolling out in the UK 🇬🇧
AI Mode in Google Search expands on AI Overviews and allows you to go even deeper through follow-up questions and helpful links to the web.
Try it today! Learn more → https://t.co/EDyWBRrtEb pic.twitter.com/Qx4s0JanV3
The function was launched in the US at the end of May, followed by India earlier in July, and comes in addition to Google's AI Overview, which is now built into its searches.
Hailed as its most 'powerful AI search to date', it allows users to ask lengthy and complicated questions, as well as follow-ups.
The tool is powered by Google's latest AI model, Gemini 2.5, and allows users to ask nuanced questions that would have previously required multiple searches.
The new search works by breaking down questions into sub-topics and sending out a range of queries on behalf of users.
It will also allow so-called multimodal searches, either by text, voice or pictures.
Hema Budaraju, Google's vice president of product management for search, told the PA news agency it heralds a 'major shift' in the way people are using online searches, with questions now becoming longer and more complex.
In a blog announcing the launch, Ms Budaraju said: 'AI Mode is a new, intuitive way to address your most complex, multi-part questions and follow-ups, and satisfy your curiosity in a richer way.'
She added: 'AI Mode is particularly helpful for exploratory questions and for more complicated tasks like comparing products, planning a trip or understanding complex how-tos.
'In fact, we've found that early users of AI Mode are asking questions that are two or three times the length of traditional search queries.'
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To summarise briefly, Google's AI Overviews provide AI-generated summaries above traditional search results and will offer a number of sources for readers to then click on and find out more information about a search query.
Meanwhile, AI Mode offers a conversational, chat-like interface that replaces the standard results page with more in-depth breakdowns of search queries.
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