Google expands its AI Mode search feature with Hindi support

Google

Google is rolling out AI Mode, its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered answer engine-style search experience, in Hindi for users in India and around the world.

This move comes two months after the tech giant introduced AI Mode in India in July, making it the first country outside the United States where the feature was made widely available.

AI Mode is Google's bid to counter rivals such as Perplexity and OpenAI's ChatGPT, which have gained ground over the past couple of years amid an ongoing shift in how consumers seek information. The feature was first announced in March and was made available to all consumers in the United States in May. Last month, AI Mode was extended to over 180 countries.

Apart from Hindi, Google is also adding support for languages such as Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese in AI Mode as part of this rollout.

Accessible through a dedicated tab on the Search results page, AI Mode allows users to ask longer, more complex and nuanced questions that would have previously required multiple searches.

The feature uses a custom version of Gemini 2.5 AI model and builds on Google's AI Overviews feature that was introduced last year. AI Overviews provides a quick summary of a topic along with links to go deeper. These efforts are part of Google's push to reinvent its flagship Search product for the AI era.

A screenshot of Google's AI Mode in Hindi language (Image: Google)

AI Mode combines advanced capabilities of Google’s AI models with access to information systems, including real-time sources such as the Knowledge Graph, real-world data, and shopping information for billions of products.

It uses a technique called "query fan-out," which breaks down a question into different subtopics and concurrently searches on each of them across multiple data sources. The results are then brought together into a single, easy-to-understand response.

AI Mode is also designed to be multimodal. This enables people to also speak, or snap a photo with Lens to receive a rich, in-depth response with links and explore further through follow-up questions.

For example, one can upload a picture of their balcony and ask a question that considers multiple aspectcs at once like "बारिश के इस मौसम में यहां एक छोटा सा गार्डन बनाना चाहता हूं. रात में खिलने वाले कौन से खुशबूदार पौधे लगाऊं ताकि चाय पीते हुए लोकल ट्रेन और शहर का नज़ारा देख सकूं?" (I want to make a small garden here in this rainy season. Which fragrant plants should I plant that bloom at night so that I can enjoy the view of the local train and the city while drinking tea?)

"Building a truly global Search goes far beyond translation. It requires a nuanced understanding of local information," said Hema Budaraju, Vice President of product management for Search at Google.

"With the advanced multimodal and reasoning capabilities of our custom version of Gemini 2.5 in Search, we’ve made huge strides in language understanding, so our most advanced AI search capabilities are locally relevant and useful in each new language we support," she added.

Rivals OpenAI and Perplexity are also taking various steps to drive adoption of their products in India.

Perplexity is offering a one-year free subscription to its premium tier, Perplexity Pro, for all 360 million customers of telecom operator Bharti Airtel. The company has also deepened its push into the country by recently expanding its finance vertical to offer live stock prices, news, and latest information from the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

OpenAI has also introduced an affordable India-specific pricing plan called ChatGPT Go, priced at Rs 399 per month, and added support for UPI as a payment option. The firm is set to open its first India office in New Delhi later this year to strengthen its presence in the country.

Meanwhile, Google is also providing a one-year free subscription to its premium AI tools to college students in India.