Google Search is changing shape in plain sight. The familiar homepage box is being rebuilt as an AI entry point that can take text, images, files, videos and even Chrome tabs, then respond with suggestions that go well beyond old-style autocomplete. Google is calling it the biggest Search upgrade in more than 25 years, which sounds grand, but the more important point is practical: the homepage is being redesigned for a back-and-forth workflow, not a single query and a list of links.
That matters because the homepage has always been the cleanest expression of Google’s product. If the box changes, the whole service changes with it. What is emerging now is an AI-first version of Search that mixes classic web retrieval, generated answers, live inputs and agent-like actions. Some of it is already usable. Some of it is still limited to subscribers, Labs users or US rollouts scheduled for summer.
What is live on the Google homepage now
The biggest visible shift is that AI Mode is no longer tucked away as a side experiment. Google had already added an AI Mode button to the desktop homepage, and the feature already supports questions based on images and PDFs, along with tools such as Canvas, Search Live and Lens in Chrome. Google also says AI Mode has passed 1 billion monthly users, with query volume more than doubling every quarter since launch. Those are huge numbers, but they also explain why the company is pushing the feature closer to the front door.
The homepage search box is no longer just for typing. Google wants it to accept whatever context you already have.
Google previously described AI Mode as an end-to-end AI Search experience that uses query fan-out, which means it breaks a harder question into a cluster of related searches before assembling a response. That helps explain why it feels different from a standard results page. Instead of handing you links and making you do the stitching, it tries to do the stitching first.
How AI Overviews now feed directly into AI Mode
Google is also tightening the connection between AI Overviews and AI Mode. The company says users can ask a follow-up from an AI Overview and move straight into a conversational exchange with AI Mode across desktop and mobile worldwide. That is a meaningful shift in behaviour. A quick answer at the top of results is no longer the end of the experience. It is a hand-off into a chat-like thread.
There is still a catch, and Google’s own help documentation is clear about it. AI Overviews appear when Google’s systems decide generative AI would be especially helpful, and the same help page warns that AI responses may contain mistakes. That caveat is easy to gloss over when a product demo looks slick. It is harder to ignore when these answers are increasingly being placed in front of the wider web.
Google is making AI answers easier to start and easier to continue, while still admitting they can be wrong.
What Google is rolling out next this summer
The next phase is less about answers and more about delegation. Google says it is introducing search agents, starting with information agents that monitor web sources alongside fresh finance, shopping and sports data, then send synthesised updates. The first rollout is planned for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers this summer.
It is also expanding agentic booking in Search. Google says this will cover more tasks such as local experiences and services, and in select categories it will be able to call businesses on a user’s behalf in the US this summer. That is a more consequential change than it may sound. Search stops being a place where you compare options and starts becoming a place where the task gets done for you.
From search box to dashboard builder
Another upcoming piece is Antigravity, which Google says will let Search build custom dashboards, trackers and mini-app-like experiences. This is due to start in the US in the coming months for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers. If it works well, it could turn search results into something more structured and persistent than a transient answer card.
Google is also expanding what it calls Personal Intelligence in AI Mode to nearly 200 countries and territories across 98 languages. The company says connections to Gmail and Google Photos are part of that direction, with Calendar coming later. That points to a version of Search that knows more about your own context, not just the public web. Useful, yes. Also more intimate than the old homepage ever was.
Why this homepage shift matters
The real story is not that Google has added another AI feature. It is that the homepage is being repositioned as a multimodal control surface for the rest of Google’s AI stack. Search Live, for example, launched with voice input in AI Mode on Android and iOS in the US for people enrolled in the Labs experiment. Put that beside tabs, files, images and generated dashboards, and the pattern becomes obvious. Google wants Search to be the place where context comes in, reasoning happens and actions begin.
That is an ambitious bet, and it will change how people use the web if it sticks. But it also raises an old question in a sharper form: when the answer arrives faster and in a friendlier tone, will users stay alert to its limits? Google’s own warning suggests they should.
The Google homepage is getting AI superpowers, but the bigger change is subtler. Search is moving from retrieval towards delegation. For users, that may feel convenient. For the open web, and for anyone who still wants to inspect the source material, it is a shift worth watching closely.