Year in Search 2025: Here's a look at the most notable AI features Google introduced to users in India this year.
Google's new Nano Banana Pro enables high-res image generation and multilingual text rendering
Photo Credit: Google
2025 marked a clear paradigm shift for artificial intelligence (AI) — transforming from a trending buzzword to a utilitarian tool on which users actively depended. This shift was especially evident in India, with Google India's Year in Search 2025 revealing ‘Gemini' to be the second-most-trending search among users. At the centre of it was Google, whose AI-powered tools made their way into day-to-day tasks and people's workflows, impacting the way they search, create, and communicate online.
Here's a look at the most notable AI features Google brought to India in 2025.
Google marked the first international expansion of AI Mode when it introduced the feature in June. It is an AI-based search experience that serves as an extension of AI Overviews. The tech giant claims AI Mode offers responses to complex topics and search queries that are multi-faceted and would normally take a user multiple searches to find. The feature also received a major update last week, and it is now powered by Google's latest Gemini 3 model, bringing enhanced capabilities.
AI Mode is currently available on both the website viewed on desktops as well as via the Google app. Initially limited to English and Hindi, the feature has been expanded to several other Indian languages, including Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.
Another recent announcement is the Nano Banana Pro. It arrives as an improved version of the editing model powered by Gemini 3 Pro. Google calls it a state-of-the-art (SOTA) image generation and editing model that can reason and access real-world knowledge to generate requested images. The tool also brings improvements in output image quality and the ability to generate and download 2K and 4K resolution images.
Gemini 3 Pro-powered Nano Banana Pro is available to all users with varying rate limits. Free users will receive the lowest rate limits, and once those limits are exhausted, they will revert to the Gemini 2.5 Pro-powered version of the model.
Introduced in India this Wednesday, Virtual Apparel Try-On is an AI-powered tool that allows users to see how they would look in an outfit. When shopping for a product among billions of apparel items listed on its Shopping Graph, users will see a try-it-on icon across Google; tapping it lets them access the tool and helps them make a buying decision. The feature is part of the Mountain View-based tech giant's Shopping Graph offering.
Virtual Apparel Try-On can be accessed via AI Mode, Google Shopping, product results on Google Images, and anywhere else these listings appear.
The Pixel Drop for July brought AI Mode in Circle-to-Search to users in India and the US. It allows them to type text-based prompts and receive detailed responses with inline citations. The company also added in-game help to the visual lookup tool, enabling users to discover helpful articles and videos of the exact spot that they are stuck at in a game, eliminating the need to switch apps.
A search bar appears at the bottom of the Circle to Search results panel. When users type in this bar, the query is processed directly by AI Mode, resulting in a more conversational, consistent experience.
Google has been updating AI Mode with new features since its rollout earlier this year. It was made available in Google Lens, with additional multimodal input capability. This means if the user clicks an image or uploads one from their camera roll along with a query, the AI feature will share a comprehensive response along with related links to learn more about the topic. AI Mode in Lens is powered by a custom version of the Gemini model.
In October, the tech giant rolled out Search Live in AI Mode. Google. Its introduction allows users to ask questions about their surroundings using the phone camera and have voice-based conversations with the AI assistant. They can ask specific questions about their surroundings and receive responses, leveraging the capabilities of Google Lens.
Search Live in AI Mode leverages a query fan-out technique where they are broken down into subtopics. The AI model then runs multiple, simultaneous searches for each of them.
For details of the latest launches and news from Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, OnePlus, Oppo and other companies at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, visit our MWC 2025 hub.