Watch: AI Mode
Google's AI-powered search experience — essentially Gemini with search, calculator, time, location and Python tools — answering queries conversationally.
Transcript
Under the hood, Google’s new AI-powered search experience, known as AI Mode, is essentially the Gemini language model equipped with a powerful toolkit. This toolkit includes Google Search, a calculator, a Python sandbox, and real-time location and time data. Instead of just giving you a list of links, it uses these tools to answer your questions conversationally.
Testing reveals exactly how this process works. When you ask a question, the system first injects your current date, time, and location to keep the context accurate. Then, it translates your query into multiple background search calls to gather information. It follows a strict pattern: prepare, retrieve, signal, and then serve the final answer. If you disable the search tool, the system still runs those background searches, but it refuses to package them into a final response.
Interestingly, AI Mode handles web pages through its own browsing and content-fetching paths. At launch, it lacked the ability to read live pages directly through a URL, a feature the standard Gemini app can easily handle. For anyone looking to understand how search is evolving, AI Mode is now the primary battleground for visibility.