Google embeds AI models directly into search

Google is gearing up for the first public release of its AI Patterns search engine tool. The company announced today that a “small percentage” of users in the US will see an AI Patterns tab in Google Search in the coming weeks, which will allow users to test search-focused chatbots outside of Google’s experimental Labs environment. Unlike traditional search platforms that only provide a large number of URL results based on the query or description entered by the user, Google’s AI Patterns will answer questions with AI-generated responses based on information in Google’s search index. This is also different from the AI Overview feature already available in Google Search, which embeds a summary of AI-generated information between the search box and the web page results. AI Patterns will be located in their dedicated tabs and ranked first in the search tab bar, to the left of the “All”, “Images”, “Videos” and “Shopping” tabs. This is Google’s response to search engines based on big language models such as Perplexity and OpenAI’s ChatGPT search feature. These search-focused AI models are better at accessing web and real-time data than regular chatbots such as Gemini, which will help them provide more relevant and up-to-date responses. If you are already familiar with the chatbot’s user interface, then AI Patterns will soon get you started. Google has also removed a waitlist for Labs users in the US to test the AI mode, giving more people the option to try out the search feature pending its widespread rollout. The AI mode itself has also been updated with new features, including a new feature that saves previous searches to a new panel on the left, allowing users to quickly revisit topics or make follow-up queries without having to restart the conversation. Now visual, clickable cards for products and locations are also starting to appear in the AI mode, providing business information such as business hours, reviews and ratings, as well as pictures, inventory, shipping details and real-time prices for products. Correction, May 1: Removed a line stating that users need to subscribe to Google One AI Premium to access AI mode in Labs. This restriction has been lifted.