First impressions of Google AI Mode: between indifference and indignation

What is Google AI mode?

He AI mode from Google is here. After we announced its arrival in our country at the end of September, it seems that the company has decided to activate it for everyone. In the following sections I am going to explain what exactly it is, how you can use it and what first impressions I have gotten from it.

Let’s start talking about what is Google AI mode. Do you remember Bing Chat? Well, something very similar, but created by Google several years later. In short, what the search engine proposes is that the user obtains information using AI. The language model, which in this case It will probably be Gemini 2.5 Flash (due to its speed, above all), it is responsible for synthesizing the information found on the Internet, generating content from it and resolving user questions.

But although it may seem like something very new, it is not the first time that Google has launched initiatives like these. First were the featured snippetswhich cited websites directly in the SERPS (search results). Although the sites mentioned were located at ground zero of searches (the highest part), the fact of showing the answer to the user’s question discouraged clicking.

After the launch of ChatGPT, many realized that LLMs were a quick way to obtain information without having to navigate a sea of ​​results. Therefore, with caution but determination, Google integrated AI text generation. It is an evolution of the fragments known as AI Overviews. In this case, it is an LLM that creates an answer based on websites it links to. But if a snippet or quote discouraged the user from clicking the link, this directly defeats that intention.

all this takes us to AI mode. Although AI-generated texts have sunk traffic, they still showed the classic links, which we are all used to. However, the new mode proposed by Google definitively corners them. The user communicates with a chatbot that feeds on the content created by the media, but does not encourage them to visit any of them.

How to use Google AI mode step by step

AI mode, although new, reinforces the approach that Google has implemented in search for a long time: retain the user as long as possible. In fact, the company has even integrated an emoji selector, which eliminates the need to go to any specialized website.

To activate Google AI mode you don’t have to do anything. You will find it in the search bar, on the main page of the search engine. I haven’t seen it in the Google mobile app yet, but hopefully it will spread there as well. The first thing you should do is write the query and then click on the button AI Mode.

If you do it without typing anything, you will end up with a classic chatbot, similar to Gemini and ChatGPT.

Once you ask a query, the AI ​​analyzes several websites for answers:

As you see in the image above, no one escapes. Reference AI mode to websites, Instagram posts, or YouTube videos. That does not necessarily mean that it is based on that content, because the AI ​​mode does not make it clear. When you click on the link icon, Google does not cite a specific media outlet, but rather a group of them. It’s like Google doesn’t want you to know exactly where it got the information from.

From here, follow-up questions can be asked. For example, you may be asked to explain the steps to us in more detail. As with any language model, context is taken into account, so something like “explain the steps in detail” is enough, without needing to mention what we are talking about.

Google has also taken the opportunity to refer to AI mode in the previews generated by artificial intelligence. So, even if you decide not to use this new mode, the company will shoehorn it into your searches. Remember that there is a more effective way to disable all AI on Google.

Apart from this, AI mode has two interesting options:

• Save chats. As with Gemini, Mistral or ChatGPT, each interaction is stored within a chat. I found this interesting because it allows you to maintain a search history and expand them later, if necessary.
• Share chats. Apparently, Google is going to allow you to share searches with their results with other users. This represents a considerable paradigm shift, as it causes Internet queries to become collaborative. This is especially useful considering the results of each search are completely personalized, in AI mode.
• Search with an image. You can see an example of this below. It can be used to locate objects, add context to a search, or be more precise when finding content on the Internet.

  

At the moment, AI mode is optional, but we cannot rule out that over time it will become the standard way of searching the Internet.

Sensations: between indifference and indignation

In closing, allow me to tell you what are my feelings after using Google AI mode. On the one hand, it has made me feel indifference. The reason is that what the company that owns the most powerful search engine in the world proposes (no small feat) is quite insipid. Okay, advanced search modes will probably arrive eventually, but at this point, the AI ​​mode could have been more complete.

The most obvious comparison is with Perplexity AI. It is an AI-based search engine with endless functions, some of them very useful for researching, finding information or learning new things. It allows you to work with different models, create personalized pages and even has different working modes, depending on the objective of the query.

On the other hand, I am outraged by the way AI is implemented in searches. Going back to Perplexity, it doesn’t really matter too much whether or not you leverage media to offer your service. And it doesn’t matter for one simple reason: it’s a tiny platform compared to Google. Now, that the most used search engine in the world kidnaps the user at the expense of the content created by the media is, to say the least, outrageous.

I am not against the use of LLMs, not even in searches. But I think that the answers that Google generates They should invite the user to go to the sites that created that content. Don’t be fooled by the links to websites and videos that you have seen in the previous screenshots: almost no one is going to visit them. However, it was those creators who resolved the user’s doubt with their time and money, although Google believes that they do not deserve their due recognition.

And where does all this take us? The Internet is no longer the same, without a doubt. Now, concerns about privacy, the hypothetical arrival of advertising in AI results and the biases introduced on purpose in the models may make the user end up longing for those 10 blue links from a Google whose motto was “Don’t be evil.”