World's largest search engine will look different: Google introduces AI mode
Starting Wednesday, Google is adding a new AI search feature to its search engine in nearly fifty countries and territories, including the Netherlands. According to Google, this so-called AI mode offers the ability to delve deeper into questions.
For some time now, Google search results have often included AI-powered answers to your questions. Now, there's also a chatbot-like search function for difficult questions, such as: "I'm looking for an Asian restaurant in Paris that's affordable, offers vegetarian cuisine, and is within a 3-kilometer radius of the city center."
The new feature also allows users to issue commands, such as creating a table comparing different coffee brewing methods. The AI mode can then answer follow-up questions like, "What's the best grind size for each method?" Google reports.
The AI mode will be rolled out in phases starting Wednesday and will then be available in Dutch, among other languages. The feature will appear as a tab on the search results page and in the Google app, to the left of the "All" and "Images" tabs. It's based on the models of Google's own AI assistant, Gemini.
You can sometimes find an error among Google's AI answers. This can happen even in AI mode, admits Martijn Bertisen, vice president at Google Benelux. "There will always be a margin of error, but we try to minimize it as much as possible."
The feature was made available in the United States, the United Kingdom, and India in July. According to Google, it's now available in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.
Google has been showing summaries generated by artificial intelligence for some time now for certain topics. These summaries contain a list of links to the information and advertisements. In the AI tabs, some of the links are placed in footnotes. The three most important sources are highlighted in a sidebar.
