According to Thurrott.com, Google has started a mobile-only test integrating its AI Mode directly into the standard search results page. This experiment, available to select users in markets where AI Mode already exists, builds on the existing AI Overviews feature. The new integration lets users ask conversational follow-up questions using Gemini models without switching to a separate tab or interface. Google’s VP of Product for Search, Robby Stein, stated this brings the company closer to its vision where users can ask complex questions naturally. This test follows the broader rollout of the Gemini 3 and Gemini Nano Pro models in Search. The performance of Gemini 3 was reportedly so strong it prompted a “code red” at competitor OpenAI earlier this week.
Search Is No Longer a List of Links
Here’s the thing: Google isn’t just adding another feature. They’re fundamentally changing what the search results page is. For decades, it was a portal—a list of blue links you clicked to leave Google and go somewhere else. Now, with AI Overviews as the starting point and this integrated chat mode for follow-ups, the goal is to keep you right there. You ask. Google answers. You ask a clarifying question. Google answers again. It’s a closed loop. The strategy is obvious: retain user engagement and session depth at all costs. Why let you wander off to another site, or worse, to ChatGPT, when they can try to solve everything for you on the spot?
The Business Model Squeeze
But this creates a massive, looming tension. Google’s core revenue comes from ads placed next to and within those traditional blue-link results. If the AI provides a perfect, sourced answer at the top, and then you dive into a conversational thread below it, where do the ads go? How do publishers, whose content is essentially synthesized by the AI, get traffic? This test feels like Google is racing ahead with the user experience because they have to—competitive pressure from AI-native players is real. They’re betting they can figure out the monetization and ecosystem fallout later. It’s a classic “move fast” tech play, but the stakes are the entire $200-billion-plus search advertising economy.
Timing and Competitive Fear
The mention of Gemini 3 causing a “code red” at OpenAI is telling. It’s not just PR. It shows Google is finally feeling confident enough in its model quality to push it front-and-center into its most valuable product. The mobile-only focus makes sense, too. That’s where most searches happen, and it’s a more controlled environment for a radical change. They’re basically using this test to see how real people actually use a chat-based search hybrid. Do they like it? Do they trust it? The timing is aggressive. They’re not waiting to perfect everything. They’re shipping, learning, and iterating in public, which is something we haven’t always seen from the search giant. The beneficiaries, in the short term, are users who want quick, complex answers. The long-term beneficiaries? That’s the trillion-dollar question Google is trying to answer before someone else does.
