Google Search: Introducing AI Mode in Australia
Imagine being able to ask a question that's very complex or multi-layered and in an instant, receive a comprehensive, AI-powered response that explains it well, complete with web links to explore.
For example, you might ask: “Create a walkable itinerary for my friends and I in Melbourne this Saturday. We want to cafe hop at some lesser known specialty coffee shops, visit art galleries, and see local street art.”
And then, “What are some local food spots that we can get along the way for lunch and dinner?
From today, you can experience this firsthand as we roll out AI Mode – our most powerful AI search experience yet – in Australia in English. We first introduced AI Mode as an experiment in the US earlier this year and are now rolling it out to more users globally. It's already resonating with people who appreciate its speed, quality, and fresh responses.
Built for your most complex questions
Using a custom version of our advanced Gemini models, AI Mode lets you ask longer, more complex questions that would have previously required multiple searches. In fact, early testers are already asking queries nearly 3x the length of traditional searches, showing it’s perfect for your toughest questions. It’s particularly helpful for exploratory tasks like planning a trip, or understanding complex how-tos.
For example, you can now ask questions like: ”I want to understand the different coffee brewing methods. Make a table comparing the differences in taste, ease of use, and the equipment needed..” And even follow up with: “What’s the best grind size for each method?”
Behind the scenes, AI Mode uses a query fan-out technique, breaking your question into subtopics and issuing a multitude of queries on your behalf. This enables Search to dive deeper into the web than ever before, helping you find incredible, hyper-relevant content. You can also easily ask follow-ups to dig even deeper.
What makes this experience unique is that it brings together advanced model capabilities with Google’s best-in-class information systems, and it’s built right into Search. You can access not only high-quality web content but also tap into fresh, real-time sources like the Knowledge Graph and shopping data for billions of products.
Multimodality in AI Mode
AI Mode is designed to be multimodal so you can ask questions in whatever way feels most natural: whether that's with text, your voice, or by taking or uploading an image. In AI Mode, simply tap the microphone icon and ask your query. You can also snap a photo or upload an image and ask your question, thanks to AI Mode’s rich multimodal capabilities.
Helping people explore the best of the web
Helping people discover content from across the web remains central to our mission. With AI Mode, you can express exactly what you are looking for, and get the right web content in a range of formats, with prominent links for people to click on. By expanding the types of questions people can ask, Google Search opens up new opportunities for content discovery.
AI Mode is rooted in our core quality and ranking systems, and we are using novel approaches to improve factuality. We aim to show an AI-powered response as much as possible, but in cases where we don’t have high confidence, you will see a set of web search results. As with any early-stage AI product, we won’t always get it right, but we are committed to continuous improvement.
As we continue to evolve the Search experience with AI capabilities, we remain focused on helping people access information and perspectives from a diverse range of sources. For example, with AI Overviews, we’re seeing that people have been visiting a greater diversity of websites for help with more complex questions. And when people click from search result pages with AI Overviews, these clicks are higher quality for websites — meaning users are more likely to spend more time on the sites they visit. And in the months since we first started testing AI Mode, we've continued to evolve how we show links in responses to make it easier for people to continue their journeys on the web.
We are very excited to see how this end-to-end AI search experience helps you explore your curiosity and understand the world around you.
