Google has officially rolled out its AI Mode feature in India, becoming the first market outside the United States to receive this advanced search tool. First introduced in the US on June 25, AI Mode allows users to ask natural language, free-form, and complex queries — a significant step forward in how people interact with search engines. Describing it as Google’s “most powerful AI search,” Hema Budaraju, Google’s VP of Product Management for Search, shared exclusive insights with IndianExpress.com on what makes India a prime destination for this global expansion.
“We are always excited about bringing technology to India,” Budaraju said, explaining the company’s decision. “I think the acceptance of technology, the embracing of technology, especially AI overviews, lens, multimodal maps – this is bar none when it comes to the Indian diaspora and how Indian users actually help us learn and advance these technologies forward. So for us, this is a privilege to bring AI Mode to India as the first market out of the US.”
She shared that during the testing phase under Google Labs, Indian users responded enthusiastically. “People are appreciating the speed and the quality of the response and the freshness of the content that’s coming back,” Budaraju noted. Users in India were particularly drawn to asking detailed, open-ended, and nuanced queries — something AI Mode is designed to handle with ease.
Unlike traditional search, AI Mode is built on a specialized version of Gemini 2.5 and supports significantly longer, more intricate queries. “You’re finding that people use AI Mode where the length is two to three times the length of traditional searches,” Budaraju revealed. The feature uses a sophisticated “fan-out” technique. “AI Mode uses fan-out techniques. This means it can break down your question into subtopics and issue a multitude of queries simultaneously on your behalf,” she explained.
To ensure quality and safety, Google relies on its long-established trust systems. “With any update, with any feature that we bring to search, our top priority is holding the bar for quality,” Budaraju said, citing “rigorous internal testing as well as what we call adversarial red teaming.”
Addressing concerns from publishers, she stressed Google’s ongoing commitment to supporting the broader web. “At Google, our core mission remains connecting people with information across the web and the diversity of human perspectives.”
As Budaraju puts it, “Talk to AI Mode like you would talk to a friend and express the nuance that you want.”
