Google became the gateway to the internet by perfecting its search engine. For two decades, it surfaced 10 blue links that gave people access to the information they were looking for.
But after a quarter century, the tech giant is betting that the future of search will be artificial intelligence. On Tuesday, Google said it was introducing a new feature in its search engine called A.I. Mode. The tool will function like a chatbot, allowing people to start a query, ask follow-up questions and use the company’s A.I. system to deliver comprehensive answers.
“It’s a total reimagining of search,” said Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, in a press briefing ahead of the company’s annual conference for software developers. In tests of the feature, he said people dramatically “changed the nature of how they are interacting with search.”
The new feature headlined a list of new A.I. abilities, including more personalized and automated email replies and a shopping tool to automatically purchase clothing after it’s put on sale.
With the introduction of A.I. Mode, Google is essentially trying to disrupt its traditional search business before upstart A.I. competitors can disrupt it. The search giant has been nervous about that possibility since declaring a “code red” two years ago after the arrival of ChatGPT, a chatbot from OpenAI that ignited a race to add generative A.I. into tech products.
But Google has been hesitant to fully embrace A.I. because it has so much to lose. The company’s search business generated nearly $200 billion last year, more than half of its total sales. And the bedrock of that business has been how it has reliably provided people with the best answers to questions.
Though they are a technical leap, A.I. systems have one big shortcoming: They are prone to giving incorrect answers, like recommending people eat rocks, which one of Google’s A.I. systems did last year.
A.I. might have already begun to cut into Google’s popularity as the default for finding digital information. During testimony in a Justice Department antitrust case against Google this May, one of Apple’s top executives, Eddy Cue, said Google search traffic declined for the first time in 22 years because more people are using artificial intelligence. Google said afterward that it continued to “see overall query growth” in search.
“They hesitated on this for a long time because didn’t think the quality was good or know how to monetize it,” said Pete Meyers, the principal innovation architect at Moz, a software company focused on search engine optimization that tracks changes to Google Search. “Now they’re doing what they think they have to do to compete, and it’s uncomfortable.”
A.I. Mode, which launched in the United States on Tuesday, won’t serve ads initially. Google is holding an event for marketers and advertisers on Wednesday where it could unveil more.
The A.I. transition comes amid mounting antitrust pressures to break up Google’s business. Over the past two years, Google has lost a string of antitrust cases after being found to have a monopoly over its app store, search engine and advertising technology. The U.S. government argued earlier this month that the company should have to give competing search engines and A.I. companies access to its data on what users search for and click on.
Google’s new A.I. features are also bound to deepen tensions between Google and web publishers who are concerned about traffic. Chatbots often lift information from websites and deliver it directly to people, upending the traditional search model that has sent people across the web to find material.
The company has sought to downplay publishers’ concerns that A.I. will disrupt their businesses. Mr. Pichai said A.I. Overviews, a feature the company introduced last year to generate summaries above traditional search results, has increased the number of searches people do and often leads people to spend more time on suggested websites.
At its Silicon Valley event, Demis Hassabis, the chief executive of Google DeepMind, the company’s artificial intelligence lab, presented Google’s newest model, Gemini 2.5 Pro, which does more “reasoning” to deliver more accurate results than its predecessor. He said that the lab has continued its work to turn Gemini, its A.I. chatbot and app, into a virtual assistant that can identify and address real-world problems, like fixing a broken bicycle.
The Gemini system is the backbone of a new personalized smart reply ability in Gmail. With users’ permission, the system pulls from past emails to see how a user writes and suggests automated responses that reflect that person’s tone and style. For example, Mr. Pichai showed the system automatically drafting an email by scanning his inbox and calendar to piece together suggestions from a recent a road trip through Colorado for a friend making a similar drive. It also can automatically delete and archive emails with a new tool called inbox cleanup.
Google is also bringing Gemini to the Google Search shopping experience with a new chatbot that allows users to refine their searches. A user can ask the system to surface a rug that matches a gray couch and then refine the results to show rugs that are easy to clean. There’s also an A.I. agent that will let people set the maximum price they’re willing to pay for an item, like a purse, and automatically purchase it the moment it goes on sale.
The company introduced a new subscription service for developers called Google A.I. Ultra, which provides access to the company’s premier models and features, including tools to develop A.I. agents, videos and coding. Priced at $250 a month, it is designed to compete with similar services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT Pro and Anthropic’s Claude:Max, which both cost $200 a month.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement regarding news content related to A.I. systems. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied those claims.)
In an interview before the event, Mr. Hassabis said the company is trying to preserve traditional search while also bringing new A.I. abilities to the experience with its A.I. summaries, A.I. Mode chatbot and Gemini assistant.
“They’re all very interesting and exciting and have some complementary aspects,” he said. The company will watch how each one develops over the next two years, he added, “but for now, we’ve got to make sure we’re winning on all those fronts.”
Tripp Mickle reports on Apple and Silicon Valley for The Times and is based in San Francisco. His focus on Apple includes product launches, manufacturing issues and political challenges. He also writes about trends across the tech industry, including layoffs, generative A.I. and robot taxis.
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