Google started cramming AI features into search in 2024, but last month marked an escalation. With the release of AI Mode, Google previewed a future in which searching the web does not return a list of 10 blue links. Google says it’s getting positive feedback on AI Mode from users, so it’s forging ahead by adding multimodal functionality to its robotic results. AI Mode relies on a custom version of the Gemini large language model (LLM) to produce results.