Following its official introduction earlier this year, AI Mode in Google Search has evolved a great deal and picked up some key features over the last few updates. It’s pretty clear at this point that Google wants AI Mode to be a prominent force in Search, and the company is moving forward with that ambition by adding support for five new languages.
Google announced in a blog post that AI Mode now supports five additional languages, namely Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, and Brazilian Portuguese, with the changes also reflecting on the AI Mode support page. This takes the total number of supported languages to six (including English).
While it’s a decent set of languages that covers millions of users around the world, several other languages are still missing from the list. However, it shouldn’t take long for Google to remedy that in subsequent AI Mode updates.
Could AI Mode become the default on Google Search?
Source: Google
The ‘Search Live’ tool in AI Mode
Since Google began focusing more on AI Mode and its functionalities, there was a feeling that the company might make this the default search experience, thereby replacing Google Search. This notion gained a lot more traction over the weekend as Google’s Logan Kilpatrick appeared to partially confirm that AI Mode could be the default “soon” (via Search Engine Land).
However, in response to Search Engine Land’s reporting, Google VP Robby Stein suggested that it won’t be the case, adding that the team is “focusing on making it easy to access AI Mode for those who want it.”
This exchange occurred after Google launched the updated AI Mode URL last week (google.com/ai), offering easier access to the powerful tool. This was a minor revision, though, as AI Mode was previously available via the google.com/aimode URL.
While this episode doesn’t rule out the possibility of AI Mode being the default search product in the future, it’s clear there are no immediate plans for the AI-powered search experience to replace the classic Google Search. Perhaps Google can devise a way to make AI Mode the default for those who need it, while offering the traditional search experience for everyone else. But for the time being, both AI Mode and the older search experience will continue to coexist.
