Google AI Search Sees Significant Growth by Design
▼ Summary
– Google has been expanding its AI Overviews feature in Google Search, which now has over 1.5 billion monthly users in more than 100 countries.
– Google introduced ads in AI Overviews and is testing AI Mode to compete with chat-based search platforms, allowing users to ask complex questions within Google Search.
– Google Lens has seen a 5 billion increase in searches since October, with a 10% rise in users shopping via the tool, amidst regulatory scrutiny and potential legal actions against Google’s search and adtech practices.
Google has been experimenting with AI-generated summaries in Google Search, known as AI Overviews, for the past two years, steadily expanding this feature to an increasing number of regions and languages. According to the company’s reports, this initiative has proven to be highly successful. AI Overviews now boasts over 1.5 billion monthly users across more than 100 countries.
AI Overviews aggregates information from various online sources to provide answers to specific queries. For instance, if you search for “What is generative AI?”, the top of the Google Search results page will display AI-generated content. Although this feature has slightly reduced traffic for some publishers, Google views AI-driven search enhancements as significant potential revenue sources and methods to increase user engagement on Search.
In October of last year, Google introduced advertisements within AI Overviews. More recently, the company started testing AI Mode, enabling users to pose complex questions and follow-ups seamlessly within Google Search. This new feature is seen as Google’s strategy to compete with chat-based search platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
During its Q1 2025 earnings call, Google showcased the growth of other AI-based search tools, including Circle to Search. This tool, which allows users to highlight content on their smartphone screens and ask questions about it, is now operational on over 250 million devices, up from approximately 200 million devices at the end of the previous year. Usage of Circle to Search has surged nearly 40% from one quarter to the next, as reported by the company.
Google also emphasized the increasing popularity of visual searches on its platforms. According to CEO Sundar Pichai, Google Lens, the company’s multimodal AI-powered search technology, has seen a 5 billion increase in searches since October. Additionally, the number of users shopping via Google Lens rose by over 10% in the first quarter.
This impressive growth is occurring amid significant regulatory scrutiny of Google’s search practices. The U.S. Department of Justice has been urging Google to divest Chrome following a court ruling that identified the tech giant’s illegal monopoly on online search. Furthermore, a federal judge’s decision that Google holds an adtech monopoly could potentially lead to a breakup of the company.
(Source: TechCrunch)
