After opting in to the waitlist and being a Gemini Advanced user, I’ve just been given early access to Google’s new AI Mode within labs after receiving the confirmation email.
To access the AI Mode labs experience, I’m needing to use a VPN for the US, considering the experiment is only available to users with that specified region. After enabling the experiment, you’re then taken to a ‘Meet AI Mode’ page which is essentially your homepage for searching within this experience.
On this page, suggestions are provided for your first searches to be made, including: “how do migrating birds know where to go”, “houseplants that improve air quality and don’t need much light” and “what will be the most popular spring break destinations this year”, all being provided above the ‘Ask AI Mode’ search bar.
Directing users to the AI Mode tab
After doing a normal search within the ‘All’ tab, once an AI Overview result is triggered, you’re then presented with a ‘Dive deeper in AI Mode’ CTA attached to the bottom of the AIO result section. Here’s what this looks like when you first scroll down to the button:
And here’s what it looks like after the colourful outline disappears from the button:
This looks to be the primary mechanism for directing users from the main results section of Search to the AI Mode experience, where users are able to continue the searching within a chat window. This is a similar experience to how Google originally presented Generative AI within Search over a year ago.
The search itself is another major way for users to reach AI Mode, with a distinct menu item that is placed at the beginning of the sequence. When I first did a search after being given access, the ‘AI Mode’ tab had a flicker of a rainbow going across it to bring more attention to it. Here’s what it looks like normally:
When a user selects the AI Mode menu item after conducting the search, that same search will be conducted again within the AI Mode experience, with there again being a colourful gradient that shows at the top of the screen after every search is made.
Features available within AI Mode
Within AI Mode, there is an ‘AI Mode History’ checklist item that appears in the top right of the page. This is similar to how other AI Chat tools operate, given you a log of some of your recent searches which can be deleted if you choose to do so.
In terms of citations, links are presented in quite a similar way to how they have been for quite some time within the AI Overviews feature. On mobile, AI Mode seems to actually display citations more effectively than AIOs do, considering the preview for the links display in a carousel compared just showing the favicon on load like AIOs do.
Here’s what the preview looks like for a query for when I first gained access to AI Mode, showing how users can navigate to the experience after clicking the button attached to AI Overviews:
Whoa, I just gained access to Google's new AI Mode.
— SERP Alert (@SERPalerts) March 6, 2025
The 'AI Mode' tab shows as the first menu item, also giving access through the 'Dive deeper with AI Mode' button attached to AIOs.
Learn more here (with examples + more screenshots provided): https://t.co/iz7YN6vIEg pic.twitter.com/ZMgD3tbnQh
Final thoughts
It is hard to see whether AI Mode will be a success for Google or not. It seems to have been quite a challenge to integrate a traditional search engine with a newer LLMs, so we’ll see how this plays out for Google and whether it results in them taking away much of the share of AI searches from the various competing products.
Either way, AI Mode is contained within the opt-in labs experience in the US for the moment. This means that it is probably months off Google releasing AI Mode to the broader public – this is of course whether the labs test is deemed a success. I suspect based on the pressure for Google to compete more heavily in this space, it may be something that is accelerated if the quality of answers are maintained.
