Google plans to soon launch Search Live in India, a feature that enables consumers to have back-and-forth voice and video-based conversations with the company's search engine, a senior executive said on September 23. India will be the first country outside the United States where the feature is being made available.
"It's a mobile-first experience for when you need quick real-time help...It is naturally multimodal. You can pick up your phone camera, invoke search live, point your camera, and ask a question to get a response," said Rajan Patel, vice-president of engineering, Google Search in a select media briefing.
This move comes after the tech giant introduced its AI-powered answer engine–style search experience, AI Mode, in India in June 2025.
How does Search Live work?
The feature was first introduced at the tech giant's annual developer conference, Google I/O 2025, in May and is currently available to users in the United States. It can be accessed by tapping the “Live” icon either in AI Mode, or in the visual search product Google Lens.
For example, a student might point their phone camera at a difficult equation to get help, or a person could point it at a faulty electrical item to find out what’s wrong.
"Under the hood, this is using our advanced AI models that can recognize what you're looking at, and as always, give you an answer that you can trust as quickly as possible," said Patel, who is also the co-founder of Google Lens.
Search Live will also surface web links, including websites, videos, and forums, so users can go deeper and learn more.
Read: Google's Hema Budaraju shares why India is crucial to the future of AI innovation in search
Reinventing Search for the Generative AI era
Search Live is part of Google's efforts to reinvent its flagship search product in the generative AI era, as rivals like Perplexity and OpenAI's ChatGPT gain ground amid an ongoing shift in how consumers seek information.
"We're moving from an information retrieval product to an intelligence product, not just fetching information from the web, but helping you make sense of it and take action," Patel said.
India a key market for Google Search's AI push
India is Google's largest market in terms of users and a crucial region for its future growth, particularly its AI efforts.
The country was the first international market where Google rolled out AI Mode outside the United States in July and was also among the first to receive AI Overviews, the AI-powered search experience introduced last year. AI Mode added support for Hindi earlier this month, while AI Overviews now supports Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, and Marathi.
"In India, people are using AI mode for queries related to education, getting recommendations and comparisons, writing and step by step instructions," said Hema Budaraju, Vice President of product management for Search at Google. Globally, AI Mode is now available in more than 180 countries, while AI Overviews is available in over 200.
Last month, Google introduced Flight Deals, an AI-powered tool within Google Flights that lets users describe their travel plans and find flight deals. The feature is currently available in India, the United States, and Canada.
"India is leading the way in adopting many of our innovations, including voice and visual search. We are hoping that Indian users will continue to be torchbearers of the AI transformation that we are bringing to Search," Budaraju said.
OpenAI, Perplexity's plan to woo Indian consumers
These moves come when 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.
Google has also offered a one-year free subscription to its premium AI tools for college students in India.
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