Google AI Mode To Become Default For Google Search Soon (Maybe Not...)

Logan Kilpatrick, lead product manager for Google DeepMind, Gemini, and all AI products at Google, said Google AI Mode will be the default for Google Search "soon." He said this after Google made google.com/ai go directly to AI Mode's interface on Friday afternoon.

UPDATE: On Sunday, Robby Stein, VP, Product at Google Search said he wouldn't read too much into this. More details below.

This was announced on X at around 7pm ET on Friday.

Here are those posts:

soon : )

— Logan Kilpatrick (@OfficialLoganK) September 5, 2025

This was his original post announcing the google.com/ai shortcut URL:

https://t.co/TWNRnuOrvd

— Logan Kilpatrick (@OfficialLoganK) September 5, 2025

Before Logan shared that, Robby Stein VP, Product at Google Search, shared it about an hour before him:

good idea. I've felt the same way. you can now get to ai mode by heading straight to https://t.co/Q75S7fHStY https://t.co/z0m6fCyyLL

— Robby Stein (@rmstein) September 5, 2025

That being said, we knew AI Mode will be the future of Google Search. Sundar Pichai said AI Mode will be incorporated into main search a while ago. Liz Reid, the head of Google Search, said AI Mode is the future of Google Search.

So this should be no surprise.

I do question if AI Mode, as it is now, will be the "default" in Google Search. I suspect we will see a blend of AI Mode and Google Search together in some way.

But I guess we will see.

AI Mode may be the "default" for Google Search soon, but what does that really mean?

Google AI Mode is now available in 180 countries, up from being available in the US, UK and India.

Side note: I received like a dozen notifications about this tweet over the weekend, I was offline for Shabbat and only was able to cover it after Shabbat was over.

Forum discussion at X.

UPDATE: On Sunday, Robby Stein, VP, Product at Google Search said don't read too much into the statement that Google AI Mode will be the default "soon" - I guess this is not happening soon but rather, Google is looking to make it easier to access AI Mode

wouldn’t read too much into this. we’re focusing on making it easy to access AI Mode for those who want it

— Robby Stein (@rmstein) September 7, 2025

Update 2: Monday afternoon, Logan +1ed it:

+1

— Logan Kilpatrick (@OfficialLoganK) September 8, 2025

Update 3: Logan now clarifies:

Just to clarify, wasn't saying AI Mode is replacing main Search. As Robby and I talked about on Release Notes, exciting to see more AI Mode responses and functionality coming to AI Overviews, which you get from the main search box, and I personally love to see frontier AI…

— Logan Kilpatrick (@OfficialLoganK) September 8, 2025