Google has confirmed that the search company has no plans on making AI Mode the default search experience within Google Chrome. This comes after Chrome Canary added a new experimental flag that redirected searches from the address bar directly to AI Mode. According to Rajan Patel, a Google VP, that was an error.
First to spot this was Windows Report on Friday, which originally reported:
Chrome Canary has a new experimental flag that redirects searches from the address bar directly to AI Mode threads. I confirmed it works. When enabled, search queries typed into the omnibox open an AI Mode conversation instead of the standard Google Search results page.
Generally, this is a sign of what is coming to the stable release of Google's popular web browser, Chrome.
But no, this was an error. Vice President, Search Engineering at Google, Rajan Patel told Glenn Gabe on X that this was an error, he wrote, "this was an error."
He then added, "We're not planning to make AI Mode the default for Chrome searches."
So no, Chrome won't default searches to go directly to AI Mode:
Hey Glenn-- this was an error. We're not planning to make AI Mode the default for Chrome searches.
— Rajan Patel (@rajanpatel) June 5, 2026
I was about to cover this news on Friday, but I am glad I waited - it just didn't feel to me that this was part of Google's long term plan.
Forum discussion at X.
