What is Google AI Mode – and should you use it?

Before going any further, it’s worth unpacking Google’s terminology, which is confusing. There are currently three different AI terms you need to know about, AI Overview, AI Mode and Gemini.

AI Mode is powered by a version of Gemini that’s been fine-tuned for search.

For example, it uses multi-step reasoning, which essentially breaks down complex questions into smaller chunks, allowing it to better understand nuance and better understand what you’re asking. Google also claims AI Mode is less likely to hallucinate (an industry term for when AI makes stuff up) because it can check its answers against Google’s indexed data before presenting them back to you.

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Whether it’s “good” depends on what you want from search. If you like searching for something and seeing a long list of links that you can then go and look at, then AI Mode is probably going to feel overly curated. As if the AI has already decided what you get to see before you even starting exploring or thinking for yourself. But if you appreciate a neatly packaged summary it is very convenient.

Take a look at the screenshots below to see a simple example. We asked “Who was Sekhmet?” and AI Mode produced a clean, well structured page with images, headings, explanations and direct links to its sources.

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Google AI Mode presents information in neat bullet points with useful headings, as well as a list of links in the sidebar. (Image credit: Future)

It feels like it’s giving you a simple report. Which is very similar to Perplexity. This makes sense given that Perplexity was built for search and research too. For straightforward queries or if you need to understand something in a hurry, the experience is way quicker and genuinely helpful.

Ask Perplexity the same query and you get a very similar experience and set of responses. (Image credit: Future)

Google’s advantage here is that it already has such a vast store of data. A model is only really as useful as the information it can use and think about it, Google has an enormous index across all its products, like Maps, Shopping, images, videos, reviews, news and much more.

This is where the distinction gets a bit clearer. Google’s AI Mode and Perplexity both operate like AI-powered search engines. Whereas ChatGPT is built for conversation, creativity and more long-form assistance and back and forth. It does retrieve information but only when you’ve asked it to.

The answer depends entirely on you and how you like to see and digest information. Granted, traditional search does still tailor results and show you links based on an algorithm. But it still makes sense if you enjoy exploring links, comparing perspectives or discovering sources you didn’t expect to find.

Whereas AI Mode is really appealing if you’re short on time, overwhelmed by search results or simply want a clear snapshot of something before digging deeper. It’s streamlined and direct, and for many people that will by exactly what they want.

But the convenience does come with trade-offs. AI Mode’s answered are very polished and that could erase some of the discovery that makes the internet interesting. Many people enjoy stumbling across a personal blog or falling down a Reddit rabbit hole or finding a niche site they wouldn’t usually see.

You could argue Google already tries to rein in that sort of serendipitous discovery, but AI Mode sort of cancels it out completely in favor of efficiency. And behind that efficiency is the reality that it digests and serves up content created by real people who may never get a click through to their website or credit for all of their hard work.

So there’s a bigger concern here which goes beyond whether AI Mode is good to use, but what happens if it does become our default way to browse the internet. If users stop visiting original sources, publishers, reviewers, bloggers, recipe writers and news outlets, they’ll all struggle to keep going. And with fewer people clicking through, the diversity and depth of the whole web could shrink.

So sure, AI Mode is incredibly helpful. But it’s worth bearing in mind whether that convenience is worth it when you’re deciding if it should be your new everyday search tool.