Google Expands AI Mode in Search to India, Adds Support for Voice and Image Inputs

Google is expanding AI Mode in Google Search to India, making it the feature's first international expansion. The Mountain View-based tech giant first unveiled the artificial intelligence (AI)-based search experience in March to select users in the US, and it was expanded to all US-based users in May at the Google I/O. This version of AI Mode lacks some features, such as the two-way real-time voice conversation experience, dubbed Search Live. However, Indian users will get to use the feature integrated in Google Lens and make image-based queries.

India Becomes First International Expansion of AI Mode in Search

In a blog post, the tech giant announced the rollout of the AI feature. Currently, it is available as part of Search Labs, which hosts experimental features for Google Search. Once users have registered for it, they can turn on AI Mode from the website. After activating, users can find the new AI Mode underneath the search box on the results page. It is now part of different sections, and is placed on the left-most side, before the All and News sections.

Google highlighted that AI Mode is powered by a custom version of the Gemini 2.5 large language model (LLM), and it comes with native thinking (reasoning) capability. This means that the feature will automatically use more compute to find responses for complex queries. Notably, the feature uses the company's query fan-out technique, which lets AI Mode break down queries into subtopics and run multiple simultaneous searches for each of them.

AI Mode is currently available on both the website view on desktops, as well as via the Google app. Additionally, users can also click a picture of an object via Google Lens and then redirect that image via AI Mode to get a more comprehensive answer. The Search tool also supports voice as input, and users can speak their queries aloud instead of typing them.

Separately, a 9to5Google report mentioned that the US version of the feature is now getting an upgrade. Google is reportedly suggesting AI Mode users prompts based on their Search history. This means users will now see prompt suggestions based on the topics they have looked up recently, making these prompts more relevant. These prompts are said to refresh every time a user visits the “Meet AI Mode” page via the Google app, Search widget, or the Pixel Launcher shortcuts.