Google announces glasses are back and search is getting an AI makeover

Google announced Tuesday that it would expand its search bar, the centerpiece of the most-visited website in the world, with a heavy dose of Artificial Intelligence. The tech giant is also trying its hand at hi-tech glasses again, more than a decade after wearers of its first eyewear were dubbed “glassholes” and laughed out of San Francisco.Google executives announced at the company’s annual conference for software developers, Google-io" class="entity-link entity-event" data-entity-id="130352" data-entity-type="event">Google I/O, that its search box would accommodate longer and more specific queries than before – questions more like those people would ask one another than Search’s idiosyncratic syntax. The changes will direct users to engage directly with Google’s chatbot. The change to search is underpinned by the company’s new Artificial Intelligence model, Gemini-35" class="entity-link entity-topic" data-entity-id="130351" data-entity-type="topic">Gemini 3.5, announced the same day.Executives said Gemini would make longer text predictions based on what users have already typed than it does currently. An everyday Google search may likewise return more visual elements and suggestions to interact with Google’s AI to create a calendar invite, a plan in a spreadsheet or another action within Google’s family of products.“Google Search is AI search,” said Elizabeth Reid, who oversees the product, calling the changes the biggest Google Search had seen in its nearly 30-year history. The updates roll out globally to the desktop and mobile versions of Google Search Tuesday. A video promoting the changes showed results that more closely resemble visually augmented versions of AI Overviews, the bulleted summary responses that Google Search returns now, than a list of links. Users will still be able to choose the original version of search, the collection of links, by clicking a tab titled “Web”.Reid said that Google Search queries reached an all-time high last month. Since the debut of Search’s “AI Mode” a year ago, in which a user chats with an Gemini-powered bot rather than navigating to a list of links, queries to the chatbot-specific interface have doubled every quarter. If a user adds photos, videos or documents to the Chrome browser’s search bar, Search will automatically go into AI mode.The goal of Google Gemini, said Josh Woodward, who oversees the flagship AI’s development, is the creation of “a universal assistant that’s personal, proactive, persistent”. The company announced that 900 million people use the Gemini app monthly, still less than ChatGPT’s 900 million weekly users. The addition of agents to Google’s flagship search product, used by billions of people every day, marks an expansion of a niche type of AI beyond the domain of tech-savvy, business-focused users to the wider consumer realm.Guests arrive at the 2026 Google-io" class="entity-link entity-event" data-entity-id="130352" data-entity-type="event">Google I/O technology developer conference. Photograph: Karl Mondon/AFP/Getty ImagesFor subscribers to its AI Pro and Ultra plans, Search will include the option to create “information agents”, autonomous AI bots that can perform in-depth research and return summaries of it or plans of action to a user. A “generative user interface” feature will be able to create customized visuals and interactive elements like dashboards based on a user’s requests. A new agent feature, Gemini Spark, will be able to access information from users’ Gmail, Google Calendar and other Google products to perform research, shop, and plan upcoming trips, appointments or recurring tasks.In conjunction with partners Samsung and glasses makers Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, Google executives unveiled “intelligent eyewear”, a line of sunglasses and eyeglasses set to go on sale in the fall. The glasses will respond to users’ voice commands to Gemini and take photos or videos with embedded cameras. Fellow tech giant Meta has partnered with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica to sell similar voice-activated, camera-equipped glasses since 2021, the Ray-Ban Meta.In 2014, Google started selling Google Glass, another optical computer, for $1,500, which inspired widespread derision and was shuttered the following year. In a sign of shifting attitudes, Meta sees its augmented-reality glasses as a major area of growth for its future business, and Google is even working on a second model of smart glasses with an in-lens display, nicknamed Project Aura.Other announcements at I/O included AI coding features for Gemini and cybersecurity-focused AI.