Google expands AI Mode to India as first international market

Google has expanded its AI Mode search experience to India, marking the first international rollout of the advanced AI-powered search tool since its March announcement. This expansion follows the wide US launch at I/O 2025 and represents Google’s push to bring more sophisticated AI search capabilities to international markets, starting with one of its largest user bases.

What you should know: AI Mode offers significantly more advanced capabilities than traditional Google Search or AI Overviews.

• The tool is powered by a custom version of Gemini 2.5 and uses a “query fan-out technique that breaks your question into subtopics and issues a multitude of queries simultaneously on your behalf.”
• It supports longer text prompts that are 2-3x the length of traditional searches, voice input with a visual waveform, and image queries through Google Lens integration.
• Google says AI Mode provides “more advanced reasoning, thinking and multimodal capabilities” compared to AI Overviews.

How it works: The multimodal experience combines web search with real-time data sources and visual recognition capabilities.

• AI Mode leverages “fresh, real-time sources like the Knowledge Graph, info about the real world, and shopping data for billions of products.”
• Users can ask complex questions like “What’s this plant and give me instructions on how to repot and take care of it,” and the system will identify the plant visually and provide detailed, step-by-step responses with supporting links.
• Follow-up questions are supported, allowing for conversational interactions like “Where should I place it in my home for best growth?”

How to access it: Google has made AI Mode available through multiple entry points across its platforms.

• Users can tap a new shortcut in the Search bar within the Google app for Android and iOS, or visit google.com/aimode directly.
• AI Mode appears as a new filter option alongside “All,” “Images,” and “News” on regular search results pages.
• There’s also a shortcut to launch AI Mode at the bottom of AI Overviews.

The rollout: Indian users can now sign up for Google AI Mode in English through the Search Labs experiment program starting today.