Preparing for a summer trip to Yellowstone National Park often involves checking geyser activity, planning hikes, and comparing lodge options. As I asked Google Search to “give me an itinerary for a three day trip to Yellowstone,” a thought struck me. It now feels so natural to ask Search nearly anything. Not long ago, asking this sort of question would have required a breakdown of my query into multiple smaller, more manageable questions. Today, with advances in AI, searching is more capable, more natural, and more intuitive.
I’ve seen several technology shifts in my time at Google, and the AI shift is the most exciting change to Search. This is because AI is unlocking Google’s long-term vision to make Search effortless, so that people can ask, learn, and discover anything.
The days of carefully picking our keywords to search are behind us. Now people can search by talking naturally, with images, or simply circling what they see. With the reasoning power of our Gemini models built into Search, people can ask their most complex and nuanced questions, and Search can understand them and help them discover more of the web. Search is going beyond information to intelligence to help you truly ask anything.
Search is going beyond information to intelligence to help you truly ask anything.
We see over five trillion searches around the world annually.1 Even at this scale, we continue to see overall query growth in Search.2 And guess which age group searches more than any other? Gen Z! Signed-in users 18- to 24-years old issue more queries each day than other age groups.3 Search is huge, growing, and it’s staying young.
AI is giving Google Search superpowers
People are loving what they can do with Search’s superpowers. Lens grew 65% year over year with more than 100 billion visual Searches already this year.4 And 1 in every 5 Lens searches shows commercial intent.5 Circle to Search is now available on more than 250 million Android devices globally.6 It lets you instantly search anything on your phone with a simple gesture, without ever switching apps. Younger users who try it now use it to start 10% of their searches.7
AI Overviews is one of the most successful launches in Search in the past decade. We just released it last year, and already it has more than 1.5 billion users in more than 200 countries and territories every month.8 That means Google Search is bringing generative AI to more people than any other product in the world.9
As more people use AI Overviews, something really interesting happens: They’re increasingly happier with their results, and they search more often. They start asking new types of questions, like “how to keep suits from wrinkling when traveling on a long haul flight,” “what’s the difference between a flat white and cappuccino,” or “how much sleep does an adult need for optimal health and well-being?” In our biggest markets, like the U.S. and India, AI Overviews are driving over 10% growth in the types of queries that show AI Overviews. What’s particularly exciting is how this growth increases over time.10
Google Search is bringing generative AI to more people than any other product in the world.
And for those who want to dive even deeper with their questions, we built AI Mode. With AI Mode you can ask anything, get an AI-powered response, and keep exploring with follow-up questions and helpful web links. It brings more advanced reasoning and multimodal capabilities to help you with your toughest questions. Early testers of AI Mode are asking much longer queries, two to three times the length of traditional searches.11 We’re starting to roll out AI Mode to everyone in the U.S. in Search. Over time, we’ll graduate many of AI Mode’s cutting-edge features and capabilities directly into the core Search experience.
New era of Google Search means new business opportunities
It’s been exciting to see the response and adoption of these new ways to Search. But we’re not just helping people ask new questions. This evolution opens up new opportunities for your business to expand. The growing ways people search are providing us with richer signals of context and intent than ever before. And our AI models are getting better at understanding intent. We understand the “why” and not just the “what,” so we can anticipate what a user will need next. Search can turn curiosity into a new discovery and a confident decision.
For example, let’s say someone searches “how to bring small dogs on flights.” Google Search breaks this into multiple dimensions to understand what this person really needs. So we’ll show straightforward answers, like airline policies and helpful tips. But we can also anticipate a commercial need, so at just the right moment, we can connect a traveling dog owner with a helpful ad for an airline-approved pet carrier.
With AI Overviews, we’re showing more links to a wider range of sources on the results page, creating new opportunities for content to be discovered.12 When people click from search result pages with AI Overviews, these clicks are higher quality for websites, meaning that users are more likely to spend more time on the sites they visit.13
New touchpoints for advertising are expanding rapidly. We are now bringing ads within AI Overviews to desktop in the U.S. and to select English-speaking countries on mobile. Later this year, we’ll also expand ads in AI Overviews in English to select countries on mobile and desktop. Additionally, we are experimenting with ads in AI Mode responses themselves. As Google Search gets more helpful, there are more opportunities for your business to show up when and where people are open to discovery and ready to decide.
Get discovered and drive next-level performance
Google Search is the proven leader on ROI. Google Search drives an incremental return on ad spend (ROAS) of $6 for every dollar advertisers spend on paid campaigns globally.14 You are not getting that kind of return anywhere else. But how do you make sure your marketing is getting the most out of the latest in Search?
The only way to win in the new era of Search is with AI-powered campaigns.
The only way to win in the new era of Search is with AI-powered campaigns. So we’ve brought our best and most capable solutions together for you in the “Power Pack,” designed for performance across the expanded Google ecosystem. From Performance Max to Demand Gen to the recently launched AI Max for Search campaigns, we’ve got you covered.
Search campaigns with AI Max dynamically customize your ads and drive to the most relevant landing pages. This means that, with a click, your ads are a better match with user intent and can adapt to new Search experiences, including AI Overviews and AI Mode. AI is already delivering next-level results for Search campaigns. Advertisers that adopt AI Max for Search campaigns are seeing 27% more conversions at a similar cost per acquisition (CPA) or ROAS compared to campaigns that mostly use exact and phrase match keywords.15
We believe AI will be the most powerful engine for discovery that the web has ever seen. AI is helping Search better connect consumers with the content, creators, and companies they’re looking for. We’re building a more intelligent, agentic, and personalized Search that can take on the toughest questions and help get stuff done. For businesses, Search continues to be a powerful way to turn curiosity into a new discovery and a confident decision.
