What you need to know
- Google reportedly changed the shortcut URL for AI Mode, dropping the full name for google.com/ai.
- The company also changed its main app shortcut, moving AI Mode’s colorful icon out of the search box, and placing it under it next to voice and Lens.
- In July, AI Mode’s update brought the ability for users to lean on it to call businesses to schedule appointments.
Google’s restructured its owned URLs in regards to AI Mode in Search, which may open the doors for more to come.
A post by 9to5Google highlighted a recent change by the company, as it’s now sending users to a new place for AI Mode. It notes that Google has changed its old AI Mode (google.com/aimode) to a much simpler google.com/ai URL. There’s nothing else different with this change. The main takeaway is the “shortcut” to get there has changed, presumably to help people remember and get there faster, as you’re not forced to remember the name of the feature—just AI.
The publication speculates that this change could signal more to come from Google, as its URL is shortened simply to AI.
It makes sense; if Google has created a much broader AI link, which, for now, takes users to Search’s AI Mode, more of its software could end up here as new tabs or overhead links. Elsewhere, the publication discovered that Google has shifted its AI Mode icon within its main app on Android and iOS.
Now, users won’t find the colorful icon in the search box. Instead, it’s placed beneath it, alongside the voice query button and the Lens icon. It’s unclear why Google changed this, as the colorful AI Mode icon is still within the search box in new Chrome tabs on Android.
Opening the doors for more AI
AI Mode has had a pretty productive year so far, in terms of bringing new features to users interested in the software. During I/O, Google announced the “Deep Search” feature for AI Mode, which users should now see more frequently whenever AI Overviews appear during a query. The purpose of this is to allow the AI to give you a more “in-depth” response about a topic, helping you to understand those nitty-gritty details.
It’s a feature that enables the AI to scour multiple websites and do all the heavy research for you, before delivering a “comprehensive” overview of everything to your benefit. At I/O, Google said AI Mode’s Deep Search goes through “hundreds of websites” and uses its ability to draw conclusions and more to help you with harder topics and things you want to learn more about.
In July, Google updated AI Mode again, but that came with the ability for it to place phone calls for you. Users can now lean on Google’s AI to call businesses and schedule appointments for them based on pricing and more.
