Google just made its AI only one tap away on Android
You can choose to bring AI Mode front and center. | Image credit – 9to5Google Setting it up is pretty simple. Just long-press the widget on your homescreen, tap "Customize," and head into the Shortcuts section. "AI Mode" is now right there, second on the list. If you're not using a Pixel phone, this widget might be the quickest way to access AI Mode.
But there's a catch: if you're not part of the "AI Mode" Search Lab, things still look like before. You'll see the shortcut as a pill under the Search bar, not part of it – and you'll miss out on the sleeker UI that's rolling out to users in the new Discover feed design, complete with Search Live access.
Old vs new look. | Image credit – 9to5Google There's actually a lot going on with Search lately. Google now lets you dig deeper using AI Overview with a set of three handy follow-up buttons. It can even make phone calls to businesses on your behalf and handle deep research tasks. The new "Search Live" feature is rolling out too, letting you speak casually and get real-time answers. And AI Mode is also expanding to Circle to Search, bringing gaming support and upgraded visuals.
Basically, Google's AI is everywhere in Search now – and it's not slowing down. On top of that, the company is also testing a new way to organize results into categories, which could seriously change how we find things online. But while all this sounds great for saving time, I believe there's a flip side. With AI constantly trying to predict what we want, there's a risk we might stop exploring, stop learning new things, and miss out on results we didn't know we needed.
It's a shiny new era for Search – but whether it makes us smarter or just more efficient… well, that part's still up in the air.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Phone Arena
an hour ago
- Phone Arena
New Verizon tactic might compel you to ditch your legacy plan
Carriers really want you off discontinued plans. While T-Mobile has kicked users off legacy plans without obtaining their permission, Verizon has come up with another strategy to make the old 5G Get More and 5G Play More plans less these plans let you enjoy either Apple Arcade or Google Play Pass. These subscription services let you access huge libraries of games for a monthly fee. Apple Arcade costs $6.99 per month, while Google Play Pass is $4.99/month. Verizon offered the game subscription services for free to customers on 5G Get More and 5G Play More plans, which were announced in 2021 but have been grandfathered now. As first spotted by Droid Life , Verizon has started notifying customers that the perks will soon stop being available to them. The company will discontinue them on September 22 and remove them from accounts on September 25. No more free Apple Arcade, Google Play Pass for 5G Get More and 5G Play More customers. | Image Credit - Droid Life Verizon hiked the prices on 5G Get More and 5G Play More by $4 in March, and a few months later, it's removing gaming perks. The company seemingly wants you to think that the plans are now poor value for money compared to what they offered before. It's no coincidence that Verizon sneakily slipped in a reminder that Apple Arcade is available with its newer myPlan. Customers on Verizon plans that come with six months of free Apple Arcade or Google Play Pass will begin to be charged if the promotional period ends before September 25, unless they cancel. If it ends on or after September 25, the subscription will simply be removed from their accounts. Verizon is reportedly also planning to hit customers with a series of price increases. The carrier has been losing customers due to price hikes, but that apparently hasn't deterred it from making moves that are likely to prove unpopular, such as removing loyalty discounts, which are offered to keep subscribers from switching.
GSM Arena
an hour ago
- GSM Arena
OnePlus 11 is the latest phone to receive the Mind Space feature
The AI Mind Space feature, which was introduced with the OnePlus 13s and later released for multiple OnePlus smartphones, is now rolling out for the OnePlus 11 as well. OnePlus 13S 5G It comes with the OxygenOS 15.0.0.840 update, having firmware version CPH2447_15.0.0.840(EX01). OnePlus 11 In addition to Mind Space, the update also brings the AI Perfect Shot feature to the OnePlus 11 and adds the soft light filter to the default Camera app's Photo and Portrait modes. Moreover, the update bumps up the smartphone's Android security patch level to July 2025. You can read the update's changelog below for more details. Mind Space Adds the "Save to Mind Space" feature. You can now add screen content to Mind Space as memories. Memories will be summarized and archived automatically in the app. Camera Adds the soft light filter to Camera's Portrait and Photo modes. It can help create dreamy and more stunning effects. Photos Adds the AI Perfect Shot feature, which can recognize and replace the facial expressions of the same person across different photos to create the best shots. Adds editing options for videos and live photos. You can now export videos as live photos, or export videos and live photos as photos in high resolution. Enhances the customization options on the Photos homepage, allowing you to hide the content of specific albums from the overall photo list. Apps Adds the Gradual alarm volume feature, where the alarm volume will increase progressively from low to high. You can find this feature in "Clock - Alarm- Settings - Gradual alarm volume". Recorder now supports customizable grouping, making it easier to manage audio files. Adds the In-person recordings group in Recorder. Recordings made in Standard/Meeting/Interview modes are automatically grouped into the In-person recordings category. System You can now choose OnePlus Sans and One Sans as the font in more languages. You can find this feature in "Settings - Display & brightness - Font". When you drag widgets of the same size together, the widgets will be stacked. Adds support for multi-screen control, allowing you to display one app in full screen and another in a floating window. Both apps can be operated simultaneously. Adds the Temporarily block feature. You can swipe up on a banner notification to temporarily block any further banner notifications from this app when you play games or watch videos. You can find this feature in "Settings - Notifications & Quick Settings - Banners - Temporarily block". Adds a Restart shortcut to Quick Settings, allowing for quicker phone restarts. Improves the movement range of mini windows. You can now drag a mini window to the bottom of the screen. Integrates the July 2025 Android security patch to enhance system security. Fixes a display location issue with mini windows in some scenarios. OnePlus is rolling out the OxygenOS 15.0.0.840 for the OnePlus 11 in India to a small percentage of users initially, and a broader rollout will commence in a few days. OnePlus 11 Source
GSM Arena
an hour ago
- GSM Arena
IceUniverse: Samsung Galaxy S26 Edge to pack a 4,400 mAh battery Comments
B DarlingYext, 49 minutes ago I work in a mobile phone store, people come here with complaints about phones every day. Those... more i work on mobile repair (until i finish my Engineering degree) as well, and a big reason i daily a Galaxy is the good, at least on S-Series, price of original parts, how easy and quick it is to obtain them, and how straightforward they are to service when it comes to software! That, and OneUI, although the latter is personal preference. DarlingYext, 5 hours ago What did Ice use to measure that battery? Whatever, it doesn't really mattery, that si... more This story now specifies a battery size In short Battery increase yes thinner NO Below is my post then to the the post Darling Yext has again repeat (No URL for the site he gets his misinformation from) Confirmed: The Galaxy S26 Edge will be thinner than the S25 Edge and have a larger battery thanks to new battery material technology. This is a rumour neither initiated by nor confirmed by Samsung, Samsung is NOT the party responsible, Ice Universe is. Your criticism of Samsung shows you don't understand the vectors at play. Multiple reasons to dismiss it out but don't let this clickbait campaign prevent Darling Yext from ignoring facts which will be another 10 months until the S26 Edge is released. #1) Let's not forget his prediction that this S25 Edge would be the S25 Ultra specs inside a thinner S25+ frame #2) There was a desire to get a thinner that desire had NOW been met #3 A now thinner phone than the S25 Edge (no longer 3900mAh Lithum ion) has a bigger battery #4 thinner phones have a limit so in 2027 the S27 Edge will have to INCREASE back to the (not going to happen) S26 Edge reduced size #6) UW camera cannot be improved upon the same reason #3& #4 battery Perhaps the SINGLE CRITICAL RESTRICTION is overheating. The S25 Edge uses Qualcomm's flagship SoC the 3nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. "The sustained performance isn't great, as one would expect from a thin chassis like this one. The Snapdragon 8 Elite's CPU started throttling within the first 5 minutes of the CPU test, while the GPU stability score is below 50%. You can expect considerable thermal throttling during long gaming sessions." It CANNOT get thinner as that would mean an ever smaller vapour chamber AFTER presumably upgraded to the latest Qualcomm flagship SoC The S26 Edge cannot and will not get thinner and at the same time improve specs. Phone sizes have increased to where they are now The S25 Edge was preliminary named the SLIM my post found here, using maths disproved the claim then & misinformation text by this "commentator' 99% of phones achieve a 50% charge in 30 minutes FROM FLAT. Darling Yext seems to have struggled with all aspects of charging phones. That appears to have been resolved when he via "Trial & error?" began using phones above 25W. It is laughable that he now attempts to lecture us on Faster Charging when it is a problem he alone experienced. Spoiler Alert We can read % during charging and use (discharging). If we fully discharge our phone and do not notice Charging at home will be the principal charging place & many people just carry a charging cable ( if e.g not in their car already) there are multiple places/ports outside home, and those who can't adapt so a wild guess battery pack? I thank Darling Yext for not including Fast Charging protocols so as not to be too technical and overcomplicate matters, especially as the S25 is a 25W phone, so everyone will be unaware of the complexity that 45W brings. If and when Samsung will provide instructions. #2 There was a desire to get a thinner that desire had NOW been met. Thinner means bigger vapour chamber Not Again, 56 minutes ago Samsung's customer service is absolute rubbish in the EU. Especially if you have a foldab... more I work in a mobile phone store, people come here with complaints about phones every day. Those devices are mostly Xiaomi, Apple and Samsung ones. As for iPhones, they are pretty easy (but expensive) to repair at one of their official repair shops, so no issues with that. Xiaomi devices aren't that lucky, but some non-official stores can and will repair them as well, for not that much money. However Samsung denies warranty claims way too often according to customers I've talked to, thus their customers service is absolutely awful. Sailory, 1 hour ago Look, you can write anything you want with chatGPT, I owned a lot of phones and I also had the... more "Every SiC battery in any modern phone is rated at 1000-1200 charging cycles until it gets to 80% capacity. Samsung's batteries for years are rated at 2000 cycles" That's cool, until you realise that 75% battery health on a 6000mAh battery means 4500mAh, which is still more than 100% on a phone with a 4400mAh battery. Oh, well. N DarlingYext, 2 hours ago Samsung's customer service is absolute rubbish in the EU. Especially if you have a foldab... more Samsung's customer service is absolute rubbish in the EU. Especially if you have a foldable device, any tiny scratch anywhere on that thing and your warranty is void. You famously admit you don't and haven't owned any Samsung products for years Yext somehow you know nothing enough to post the nonsense now on a phone just two months old You haven't seen the phone, nobody in your circle owns a Samsung so can't cite one incidence. You post more unreliable comments than all of the collective rumours on X that are published here ? Am i just stupid because i do not understand with some oems making regular slab phones to be very thin instead of having bigger battery? Does people really want to buy these? Then oems will sell external magnetic Qi2 portable power banks which makes that super thin phone even thicker than regular slab phone. Of course with folding phones(especially tri folding phones) people want thinner more like 8-10mm but with slab phones? I do not see the appeal honestly. k Sailory, 1 hour ago Look, you can write anything you want with chatGPT, I owned a lot of phones and I also had the... more No, you didn't guess with your assumption about ChatGtp. I've banned all sorts of AI nonsense like Gemini, etc... I don't need them, I went to school and paid attention in class. Another one who fell for the marketing trick of 2000 cycles... It would be good if the battery was 6000-7000mA, not 4400-5000. Because these 2000 cycles don't give you anything more with a small battery that you will charge more often, which will degrade it faster, which will lead to even more frequent charging and even faster degradation. These 2000 cycles do not mean 2000 days of life, as you might think. I'll teach you something else. The mA on the batteries that the manufacturer gives you does not mean that you will have 5000mA for 2000 charging cycles. They mean that the manufacturer guarantees that for these 2000 cycles your battery will have a capacity of AT LEAST 80 percent of the one originally given to you. It doesn't matter if on the third, thirtieth or 1300 cycles your battery is no longer 100 percent healthy. As long as it is at least 80 percent everything is OK. So after 1000 cycles on a 6500mA battery and charging every day and a half, which will be equal to 1500 days of life, I will still have at least 5200mA battery. Which will still be more than your initial 5000 after 1500 charges once a day and even if it has degraded only to 90 percent it will be 4500mA. I have a 1+10 Pro with a fast 80 watt charger and I charge it to 100 percent every time, once a day, and after 4 and a half years I still have the original battery and it still lasts me 1 day. So what? I'm from Bulgaria, it's not colder than Germany. So what? Even my first Xiaomi Mi 3 from 2013 still has the original battery and some life left in it. S kdss, 2 hours ago You would be right about fast charging, if you weren't completely wrong. The fact that yo... more Look, you can write anything you want with chatGPT, I owned a lot of phones and I also had the OnePlus 12. You can convince yourself however you want that fast charging is better, but the device overheats like crazy. Maybe if you live in Norway where it's not that warm it's going to stay cooler, in Germany where I live it got really hot every time, so much so that I developed a habit of charging it face down to allow the heat to dissipate faster. There are studies on batteries where it's proven that heat degrades the battery faster and it did on my OP 12 and my older Huawei phones. Maybe the new technology will be better, it's yet to be proven for me. I gave my Galaxy s23 Ultra to my dad and that 2 year old device still lasts more than any device I have ever had. Also you say 80% capacity on 6000mAh is better than 80% on 4400. That's theoretically true but how many charging cycles is the battery rated for? I'll tell you. Every SiC battery in any modern phone is rated at 1000-1200 charging cycles until it gets to 80% capacity. Samsung's batteries for years are rated at 2000 cycles. And I witnessed it first hand on the s23 Ultra and I absolutely used that thing havily for almost 2 years, no overheating while charging, charges from 15% to 90% in around 50 min which is plenty fast, that's why I chose not to sell it. But sure, you can believe what chatGPT or some online article says without knowing yourself first hand k DarlingYext, 2 hours ago Samsung's customer service is absolute rubbish in the EU. Especially if you have a foldab... more My colleague waited about 40 days to have his Fold4 screen replaced. He was denied the warranty by the official service center, "mechanical damage". He paid, what could he do? He was either screwing up with the money for the display or had to forget about the money for the entire phone, and it was only 3 months old. k Sailory, 2 hours ago After owning almost every brand out there, I can honestly say Samsung is the most reliable. If... more You would be right about fast charging, if you weren't completely wrong. The fact that your battery is dead has nothing to do with fast charging. Stop fantasizing, and go read a little about batteries. Batteries degrade from: 1 - High temperature. The new technology allows you to charge your battery at least 2 times faster, which reduces its heating by half. 1+/Oppo even uses technology that allows the heat dissipation during charging to be mainly from the adapter. 2 - The smaller the battery, the more often you charge it, the faster it will degrade. Guess which brand still relies on small batteries? 🤣 3 - Charging from 80 to 100 percent. Can you guess which is better? Limiting a 6000+mAh battery to 80 percent or limiting a 4400mAh battery to 80 percent? 🤣🤣 4 - Each manufacturer generally uses their own protocols for charging their phones' batteries. If you use a charger that doesn't meet them, your phone will heat up and won't charge as fast as it's supposed to. This also leads to battery degradation. But you can continue living in the land of slow charging and small batteries, no problem. Sailory, 2 hours ago After owning almost every brand out there, I can honestly say Samsung is the most reliable. If... more Samsung's customer service is absolute rubbish in the EU. Especially if you have a foldable device, any tiny scratch anywhere on that thing and your warranty is void. S kdss, 2 hours ago You would be right about Lamborghini if Lamborghini sold cars for 200,000 euros with a top spe... more After owning almost every brand out there, I can honestly say Samsung is the most reliable. If any other brand will have the same software, same availability and same custome support in case of damage as Samsung does, then I'll gladly switch to that brand. I don't gieva crap what logo is on my device, as long as it offers everything, not just hardware. But sadly nothing compares to what Samsung (and Apple) provide in the US and Europe. You can go on and brag about something like fast charging all you want, that crippled my older phones batteries. I will always activate the slower charging and put battery protection on as I have very bad experience with fast charging. People, especially here in GSMArena, believe that hardware features are the only thing that matter. But it's not a coincidence that Samsung and Apple are the top sellers worldwide, they have the best update policy, best customer support and great deals consistently k Vale, 4 hours ago How are people getting milked? You know you don't have to buy anything if you don't ... more You would be right about Lamborghini if Lamborghini sold cars for 200,000 euros with a top speed of 100 km/h and 15.9s to 100km/h. But they sell cars that match the money they ask for them. And you are being milked by Samsung, because for the sixth year in a row they are going to offer you a phone with the same battery, the same charging speed, almost the same cameras, etc., but with an increased price. But it doesn't matter. The important thing is that you are happy with the name of it - Samsung. Vale, 4 hours ago How are people getting milked? You know you don't have to buy anything if you don't ... more The examples you took are so wrong. Lamborghini and arguably most watch companies put more thought into theirs products than Samsung. Not using S/Ci battery tech for a phone like this was already comical, but two gens in a row is properly despicable. But again, Samsung and innovation parted ways some time ago now. What about the s26 pro? k Strawhat, 4 hours ago Silicon Carbon technology? Next century. Maybe. S Silicon Carbon technology? T Great news if S26 Pro will get bigger...
