Google announced a new update that enhances the capabilities of its search engine’s AI Mode, adding advanced visual features that enable it to handle various types of data, including images.
The company explained in a statement on its official blog that the new update allows users to upload or take photos directly, then ask questions about their content to receive accurate answers and links to additional resources.
It added that the new AI Mode “can understand the entire scene in an image, including the context of how objects relate to one another and their unique materials, colors, shapes and arrangements.” This update is part of an expansion of the AI ??Mode experience the company launched in March in Search Labs, initially available to Google One AI Premium subscribers. Google has now begun rolling out these features to millions of users in the US.
The new mode is based on a customized version of the advanced Gemini 2.0 AI model, making it more efficient at handling complex questions that require in-depth analysis or logical comparisons. Users can ask multi-part queries or follow-up questions for expanded conversational interactions.
AI Mode is similar to AI Overviews, which provides instant summaries, but it can delve deeper into queries and provide broader, interactive answers. This mode appears within the search engine as a new tab alongside sections such as All, Photos, News, and Videos.
In this mode, Google uses query fan-out technique that performs simultaneous searches across multiple subtopics and data sources, with the goal of combining the results into a single, detailed response.
The company said that “AI Mode queries are twice as long as traditional Search queries on Google. People are using AI Mode for help with exploratory and open-ended questions, along with more complicated tasks like comparing two products, exploring how-tos and planning a trip.” With the latest update, users can now take a photo of any product and request similar recommendations, as AI accurately analyzes the image and identifies all visible elements, providing a list of suggested products and links to more information.
This new mode is available to eligible users via the Google app on Android and iOS and integrates with Google Lens to provide a smarter and more interactive multimedia search experience.
