At its annual developer conference, Google I/O 2025, Google unveiled a sweeping redesign of its search engine, shifting it toward an AI-driven conversational interface in response to growing competition from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.
Introducing “AI Mode” in Search
Starting today, users in the United States can activate a new feature called “AI Mode” in both Google Search and the Chrome browser. This mode offers a question-and-answer-style experience, replacing the traditional link-based results page with interactive, AI-generated responses. Google plans to expand the rollout globally in the coming months.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet (Google’s parent company), described the change as a “complete reimagining of the search experience,” emphasizing Google’s efforts to deeply integrate generative AI into its core services.
Building on AI Overviews
“AI Mode” builds upon last year’s AI Overviews feature, which provided concise summaries on popular topics directly within search results. While widely adopted, AI Overviews reduced click-through rates to ads and websites—raising concerns among publishers, advertisers, and investors.
Despite being a pioneer in foundational AI research, Google has faced criticism for its slow rollout of consumer-facing AI features. This hesitation created space for startups like OpenAI and Anthropic to capture market share and achieve multibillion-dollar valuations, challenging Google's longstanding dominance in web search.
Google Still Leads—For Now
Still, Pichai emphasized that Google maintains a commanding lead, processing approximately 8.5 billion search queries per day. However, with the AI landscape rapidly evolving, the company is under pressure to innovate quickly to preserve its market share.
Uncertainty Around Advertising
One critical unanswered question is how advertising will fit into this new AI-powered search model. Advertising in traditional search results brought in $50 billion in revenue in Q1 2025 alone, accounting for over half of Alphabet’s total revenue. Google has yet to disclose how—or if—it will monetize “AI Mode” without disrupting that massive revenue stream.
Conclusion
With the launch of “AI Mode,” Google signals a bold new direction—redefining how billions of people interact with the web. But as it embraces conversational AI, the company must carefully balance innovation, user trust, and monetization, or risk losing the very dominance it's trying to protect.
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