Google Search is under pressure – not only are many of us replacing it with the likes of ChatGPT Search, Google’s attempts to stave off competition with the features like AI Overviews have also backfired due to some worrying inaccuracies.
That’s why Google has just given Search its biggest overhaul for over 25 years at Google I/O 2025. The era of the ‘ten blue links’ is coming to close, with Google now giving its AI Mode (previously stashed away in its Labs experiments) a wider rollout in the US.
AI Mode was far from the only Search news at this year’s I/O – so if you been wondering what the next 25 years of ‘Googling’ looks like, here are all of the new Search features Google’s just announced.
A word of warning: beyond AI Mode, many of the features will only be available to Labs testers in the US – so if you want to be among the first to try them “in the coming weeks”, turn on the AI Mode experiment in Labs.
1. AI Mode in Search is rolling out to everyone in the US
Yes, Google has just taken off the stabilizers off its AI Mode for Search – which was previously only available in Labs to early testers – and rolled it out to everyone in the US. There’s no word yet on when it’s coming to other regions.
Google says that “over the coming weeks” (which sounds worryingly vague) you’ll see AI Mode appear as a new tab in Google Search on the web (and in the search bar in the Google app).
We’ve already tried out AI Mode and concluded that “it might be the end of Search as we know it”, and Google says it’s been refining it since then – the new version is apparently powered by a custom version of Gemini 2.5.
2. Google also has a new ‘Deep Search’ AI Mode
A lot of AI chatbots – including ChatGPT and Perplexity – now offer a Deep Research mode for longer research projects that require a bit more than a quick Google. Well, now Google has its own equivalent for Search called, yes, ‘Deep Search’.
Available in Labs “in the coming months” (always the vaguest of release windows), Deep Search is a feature within AI Mode that’s based on the same “query fan-out” technique as that broader mode, but according to Google takes it to the “next level”.
In reality, that should mean an “expert-level, fully-cited report” (Google says) in only a few minutes, which sounds like a big time-saver – as long as the accuracy is a bit better than Google’s AI Overviews.
3. Search Live lets you quiz Google with your camera
Google already lets you ask questions about the world with Google Lens, and demoed its Project Astra universal assistant at Google I/O 2024. Well, now it’s folding Astra into Google Search so you can ask questions in real-time using your smartphone’s camera.
‘Search Live’ is another Labs feature and will be marked by a ‘Live’ icon in Google’s AI Mode or in Google Lens. Tap it and you’ll be able to point your camera and have a back-and-forth chat with Google about what’s in front of you, while getting links sent to you with more info.
The idea sounds good in theory, but we’re still yet to try it out beyond its prototype incarnation last year and the multimodal AI project is cloud-based, so your mileage may vary depending on where you’re using it. But we’re excited to see how far it’s come in the last year or so with this new Labs version in Search.
4. AI Overviews are going global
We’re not exactly wild about AI Overviews, which are the little AI-generated paragraphs you often see at the top of your search results. They’re sometimes inaccurate and have resulted in some infamous clangers, like recommending that people add glue to their pizzas. But Google is ploughing ahead with them and announced that AI Overviews are getting wider rollout.
The new expansion means the feature will be available in more than 200 countries and territories and more than 40 languages worldwide. In other words, this is the new normal for Google Search, so we’d better get used to it.
Google’s Liz Reid (VP, Head of Search) acknowledged in a press briefing before Google I/O 2025 that AI Overviews have been a learning experience, but claims they’ve improved since those early incidents.
“Many of you may have seen that a set of issues came up last year, although they were very much education and quite rare, we also still took them very, very seriously and made a lot of improvements since then”, she said.
5. Google Search will soon be your ticket-buying agent
Finding and and buying tickets and still something of painful experience in Google Search. Fortunately, Google is promising a new mode that’s powered by Project Mariner, which is an AI agent that can surf the web just like a human and complete tasks.
Rather than a separate feature, this will apparently live within AI Mode and kick in when you ask questions like “Find two affordable tickets for this Saturday’s Reds game in the lower level”.
This will see it scurry off and analyze hundreds of ticket options with real-time pricing. It can also fill in forms, leaving you with the simple task of hitting the ‘purchase’ button (in theory, at least).
The only downside is that this is another of Google’s Lab projects that will launch “in the coming months”, so who knows when we’ll actually see it in action.
Google gave its Shopping tab within Google Search a big refresh back in October 2024, and now many of those features are getting another boost thanks to some new integration with AI Mode.
The ‘virtual try-on’ feature (which lets you upload a photo of yourself to see how new clothing might look on you) is back again, but the biggest new feature is an AI-powered checkout feature that tracks prices for you, then buys things on your behalf using Google Pay when the price is right (with your confirmation, of course).
We’re not sure this is going to help cure our gear-acquisition syndrome, but it it does also have some time-saving (and savings-wrecking) potential.
7. Google Search is getting even more personalized (if you want it to)
Like traditional Search, Google’s new AI Mode will offer suggestions based on your previous searches, but you can also make it a lot more personalized. Google says you’ll be able to connect it to some of its other services, most notably Gmail, to help its answer your queries with a more tailored, personal touch.
One example Google gave was asking AI Mode for “things to do in Nashville this weekend with friends”. If you’ve plugged it into other Google services, it could use your previous restaurant bookings and searches to lean the results towards restaurants with outdoor seating.
There are obvious issues here – for many, this may be a privacy invasion too far, so they’ll likely not opt into connecting it to other services. Also, these ‘personal context’ powers sound like they have the ‘echo chamber’ problem of assuming you always want to repeat your previous preferences.
Still, it could be another handy evolution of Search for some, and Google says you can always manage your personalization settings at any time.
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mark.wilson@futurenet.com (Mark Wilson)
