Google is preparing one of the biggest changes in the history of its search engine, as the company moves to transform the traditional search bar into an AI-powered assistant capable of acting on behalf of users. The company revealed new artificial intelligence features that could allow people to ask Google to book restaurants, follow breaking news, contact businesses, organise shopping lists and manage everyday tasks through conversational prompts.
The move marks a major shift for Google Search, which has long been built around users typing queries and clicking through results. With the new AI tools, Google wants Search to feel more like an ongoing conversation than a single question-and-answer experience.
Google Pushes Deeper Into AI After ChatGPT Pressure
Google has been moving quickly to expand its AI products after facing strong competition from ChatGPT and other AI platforms over the past three years. The company said its Gemini AI app now has around 900 million monthly users, roughly double the figure from last year. Its AI-powered search feature, AI Mode, has also grown rapidly, with Google claiming it now reaches about one billion monthly users worldwide.
At Google’s annual developer conference near its headquarters in Mountain View, California, CEO Sundar Pichai introduced the next phase of the company’s AI strategy.
Gemini Spark to Launch for US Subscribers
One of the biggest announcements was Gemini Spark, a new personal AI agent that will be available from next week for top-tier subscribers in the United States. Gemini Spark is designed to go beyond answering questions. It will be able to help users complete actions, manage requests and handle more complex tasks across Google’s ecosystem.
Google Search will also receive a major AI upgrade for users in the United States this summer. The company said the search engine will include always-on AI agents that can monitor news, help book activities and manage shopping-related tasks.
Google also plans to widen the search box to support longer, more complex prompts similar to the way people interact with chatbots. Pichai said the goal is to make Search feel less like a series of separate queries and more like a continuous conversation that gives users deeper insights while still connecting them to the wider web.
Rise of Agentic AI
Google’s new features come as Silicon Valley focuses heavily on agentic AI, a term used for artificial intelligence systems that can take actions, not just generate answers. The trend gained major attention after Austrian developer Peter Steinberger launched OpenClaw in late 2025. The platform allowed AI tools to book flights, manage emails and even build apps from simple chat prompts.
OpenAI later hired OpenClaw’s creator, and major technology companies have since accelerated work on AI agents for mainstream users. However, the rise of AI agents has also raised concerns around security, privacy, reliability and the large computing costs required to run these tools at scale.
Google Launches Gemini 3.5 Flash
To compete more aggressively with rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic, Google also introduced its latest AI model, Gemini 3.5 Flash. According to Google, the model runs four times faster than leading competing models, including Claude Opus from Anthropic and ChatGPT 5.5 from OpenAI, while offering similar performance.
Gemini 3.5 Flash is now the default model across the Gemini app, AI Mode Search and other Google services. A more powerful model, Gemini 3.5 Pro, is expected to launch next month.
Google and OpenAI Work Together on AI Watermarking
Despite competing heavily in artificial intelligence, Google also announced cooperation with OpenAI in one area: fighting fake or manipulated digital content. OpenAI has adopted SynthID, Google’s technology for invisibly watermarking AI-generated images. The tool is designed to help identify synthetic content and reduce the spread of misleading AI-created visuals.
Publishers Worry About Fewer Website Clicks
Google’s AI expansion could create new problems for news websites and online publishers. As Google answers more questions directly inside its own search tools, users may have fewer reasons to click through to external websites. That could reduce traffic and advertising revenue for publishers that depend on search referrals.
According to a lawsuit filed by Penske Media, the publisher of The Hollywood Reporter and Rolling Stone, Google searches already end without a website click 58 per cent of the time. In Europe, a major publishers’ group has also complained to the European Commission, accusing Google of using news content to power AI summaries without proper payment.
France remains one of the most sensitive markets in this dispute, as AI Mode is still unavailable there and tensions between Google and French publishers continue.
Google Still Faces Legal Pressure
Google’s AI push is also happening while the company faces major legal challenges. A US court found in 2024 that Google had illegally monopolised online search. The company could still face major remedies, including possible changes to parts of its business.
The US Justice Department appealed in February after an earlier ruling stopped short of forcing Google to sell its Chrome browser. A hearing is not expected until late 2026 at the earliest, and could be pushed into 2027.
A Major Shift for Search
Google’s latest announcements show how quickly the search experience is changing. Instead of simply providing links, Google wants Search to become a digital assistant that can understand context, maintain conversations and complete tasks for users.
For consumers, this could make online search faster and more useful. For publishers, businesses and regulators, it raises much bigger questions about traffic, content ownership, competition and the future shape of the web.