Google AI in 2025: How Search Is Changing

Artificial intelligence played a massive role in many of Google’s key search updates in 2024. Alphabet’s Q4 2024 earnings call indicates that this trend will only continue in 2025. From Project Mariner to Astra, there’s much to be excited about if you want to increase your search engine rankings in 2025. Learn all about the upcoming Google Search innovations with this Coalition Technologies overview.

2025 Google AI Overviews

AI Overviews improved dramatically in 2024 after its bug-laden launch. According to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, they’re now a massive contributor to user satisfaction and engagement.

“People use Search more with AI Overviews and usage grows over time as people learn that they can ask new types of questions.” – Sundar Pichai

Google Senior VP Phillipp Schindler indicates that in 2025, we’ll see an even stronger presence of AI Overviews in search results. More importantly, the company plans to integrate Gemini 2.0 with AI Overviews worldwide, with testing currently underway. Adding Gemini 2.0 should make responses even more accurate and relevant to user queries.

Introducing AI Mode

AI Mode, currently available as an opt-in program in Labs, could very well be the future of Google Search. AI Mode uses a custom 2025 Google AI model (a version of Gemini 2.0) to expand AI Overviews with multimodal capabilities. 

This Google Search update allows users to ask follow-up questions to get more in-depth responses on a particular topic. For instance, you’ll be able to compare detailed product features using a single search window instead of performing multiple searches. Let’s break down the two core features of AI Mode:

• Concurrent Searches: AI Mode uses a technique called ‘fan-out searches’ to perform multiple concurrent searches based on your prompt. Google’s essentially doing the hard work for you here, scrubbing multiple sources and condensing that information into an accurate response.
  
• Smarter Overviews: Powered by the latest 2025 Google AI models, AI Mode is the most intelligent version of Search to date. AI Mode has more advanced reasoning capabilities, allowing it to understand nuance better and seek more relevant information.
  
  AI Mode can also access real-time information from sources like Knowledge Graph and integrate shopping data for billions of products in its responses. This opens up a massive opportunity for smaller businesses looking to boost their visibility with SEO. 

What This Means For Businesses

Google’s AI Mode press release explicitly notes that this feature is rooted in their core quality and ranking systems. Once AI Mode is integrated with standard AI Overviews, it’ll actively prioritize original, high-quality content that gets to the point and generates value for readers. 

If you want to take advantage of these new Search updates, now is the best time to invest in AI-optimized content marketing.

Google’s 2025 AI Overviews are putting AI SEO front and center. If you’re running a business, your content needs to be optimized to show up in AI Overviews when potential buyers look for your products. If you’re not sure how to go about optimizing your content for these Google Search updates, we recommend working with a top-rated SEO agency to get a headstart over the competition.

Ads in AI Overviews 

Google launched US ads for mobile AI Overviews in October 2024. According to Phillipp Schindler, ads will soon roll out in other countries and platforms as well. 

On the business side, this opens up new opportunities for brands seeking to drive high-value traffic with PPC campaigns. Google’s AI focus in 2025 means even more users will engage with AI Overviews instead of scrolling down to other search results. Businesses need to make sure they’re visible with well-placed AI Overviews ads. 

Sundar Pichai also hints at ads coming to the Gemini chatbot in the future, but the company plans to focus on the user experience for now. 

Project Astra: Extended Reality Search

Before diving into Project Astra, let’s talk about Circle To Search (CTS), a feature that has massive implications for Google’s upcoming extended reality push. 

CTS allows users to highlight a section of their screen to quickly learn more about it, whether it’s an image for a reverse search or a line of text to be translated. Google’s 2025 AI features will look to strengthen this already popular feature and make it more accurate than ever. Younger searchers, in particular, are the most frequent users of CTS. Those who have used CTS once tend to start more than 10% of their searches with it.

What is Project Astra?

Project Astra is one of the hottest upcoming updates to Google Search and other Google products. Astra is a research prototype focused on building an AI assistant that can accurately and intuitively understand the world around the user, and it can redefine how we search. For example, a consumer wearing an XR headset can quickly pull up detailed information about a nearby product at a glance using CTS.

Unlike traditional AI assistants, Google’s 2025 AI-powered Astra focuses on computer vision and natural language processing to build a seamless companion for everyday tasks. Google’s upcoming XR-enabled releases will likely be powered by Android XR, an Android platform designed to take advantage of Gemini.

Project Mariner: A New Way To Browse

Project Mariner is so much more than just a Google Search update. Instead, this prototype just might reinvent how we interact with our search browsers. Project Mariner is Google’s answer to OpenAI’s Operator, an agent that can take over your web browser to perform tasks for you. You can use Mariner to fill out lengthy forms, write comments, search the web, and more.

Let’s take a closer look at Project Mariner’s key features:

• Multi-Modal Understanding: Powered by the latest Google 2025 AI models, Mariner can accurately understand diverse web elements, like forms, images, text, and code. This allows the agent to holistically understand web pages rather than process individual text segments one by one.
  
• Autonomous Navigation: Project Mariner can independently type, scroll, and click on websites. For example, you can ask it to place an online order for a cake on a specific website, and the agent should be able to visit the site, add the cake to your cart, and fill out your information on its own.
  
  This has massive implications for web accessibility, as well. Specially abled users will be able to freely navigate and interact with websites without relying on multiple accessibility tools.
  
• Automation: Mariner excels at automation thanks to multimodal understanding and Google’s 2025 AI models. You can minimize repetitive research tasks and let Mariner take over instead. For instance, consumers can use it to compare the prices and features of different competing products on their screens.

Other Google Search Updates

“…2025 is going to be one of the biggest years for search innovation yet.” – Sundar Pichai

The Google CEO pointed to Astra, CTS, and Google DeepMind as examples of AI innovation coming to Google Search. DeepMind also warrants a closer look here, as it’ll allow users to get more in-depth responses to their search queries once it gets added to the standard Google Search experience.

DeepMind can supercharge the concise, valuable responses that AI Overviews draw from individual websites. Instead of pulling information from a single website, it’ll be able to go through multiple sources to provide useful results, akin to Grok’s DeepSearch.

Combine Google’s 2025 AI prototypes like Project Mariner and DeepMind, and you have a formidable new way to search. Instead of generating a list of available flights in response to ‘book a ticket to LA,’ Google will be able to navigate booking sites and fill out your booking information on your behalf.

Get Ready For The Future of Search

Google’s advanced AI models are becoming increasingly adept at seeking the most relevant and high-quality information for searchers. This makes SEO copywriting more crucial than ever. Instead of paraphrasing existing information for their websites, businesses need to focus on creating genuine value for searchers with original content optimized for AI search.

Ready to step into the future with Google’s 2025 AI features? Work with Coalition Technologies, a leading digital marketing agency at the forefront of AI search. Find out how our world-class SEO specialists can optimize your website for Google’s latest Search updates and get an early advantage over the competition. Get a free consultation today.