Google is rolling out new AI-powered search features for mobile users

• Google is rolling out a series of changes to Search that will start on mobile.
• An update will change how search results appear for certain queries.
• A Google VP said the updates are “a pretty dramatic change from where we were before.”

While Google’s AI Search Overviews may have gotten off to a rocky start, the company doesn’t believe generative AI is the future of its core product.

The company has just announced that it will be rolling out a number of new features that will take Google Search even further away from its traditional page of blue links. It will tap its Gemini AI models to change both the way results appear and the way users query Google.

The most dramatic example is an all-new search experience that uses AI to organize the page’s layout, grouping results into different categories and pushing videos, forum links (think Reddit and Quora), and other widgets into the top of the page.

The result looks miles away from a single list of web pages.

“From a user perspective, this is a pretty dramatic change from where we were before,” Rhiannon Bell, vice president of user experience for Google Search, told a roundtable with reporters.

At least for now, Google sees this new search page as only useful for more open-ended queries that AI Overviews can’t answer directly. That’s why, to begin with, it will only activate when users are searching for recipe ideas, although they plan to expand it to other topics over time.

The new search page will be mobile-only for now, though there’s every reason to expect it to be the standard experience on phones and desktops in Search in the future.

“The main thing to know is that we really see this amazing experience for exploration and inspiration,” Bell said. “And so it really is where there is no right answer.”

She told Business Insider that it will be customized based on location to begin with, and Google plans to tweak the dials and refine the results based on other data points (it’s not clear what).

“We can start cataloging that content for you in ways we couldn’t have before,” Bell said.

Of course, it leads to questions about how Google’s search rankings — an ever-changing and elusive algorithm — will work with these new formats. SEOs and publishers have struggled to understand Google’s AI Overviews, and these further changes will raise more questions about how websites gain visibility in the age of generative AI.

It’s a tricky balancing act, but some good news for publishers: Google says it’s inserting hyperlinks into AI Overview results. Until now, AI answers only included links to the sources below, but now users will see in-text links that go directly to the source of the information. Google says early tests have shown an increase in traffic to connected websites, though it declined to provide specific numbers.

Google will also add ads to AI Search Overviews, which will appear below answers that Google deems “relevant to both the query and the answer provided.”

Using Google Lens to search

Google is updating Lens, a feature that uses your phone’s camera to search for information about what it sees.

Users can make a video and then ask Lens questions about the footage. For example, they could shoot a video of a bird and ask Lens to identify it, and Lens will spit out an AI-generated response. Users can also simply point the camera at something and ask Lens a question using their voice in real time.

The additions seem like another step to Google’s Project Astra demo from earlier this year, where the user in the video pointed their phone at different objects in a room and asked questions. The user interacted with a chatbot built on Google’s Gemini, although the fundamental idea was the same: to let Google see and understand the world around you.

In addition, Google is strengthening its shopping features on Lens. Instead of only showing similar items when users point Lens at an item, it will now provide more information when searching for an item, such as reviews and price comparisons between retailers.

“Today, 20% of all Google Lens searches are actually shopping related, which is pretty exciting,” said Lens Product Director Lou Wang.

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