Google adds AI Mode shortcut to Chrome mobile, expands globally

Google has begun rolling out a dedicated AI Mode shortcut to Chrome on mobile, making its experimental conversational search feature easier to access, the company announced this week. The button appears beneath the search bar on the New Tab page in the Chrome app for iOS and Android in the United States, with Google saying the shortcut will be expanded to roughly 160 additional countries and to more languages including Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese in the coming weeks.

AI Mode allows users to pose complex, multipart questions and pursue followup queries within Search, using conversational prompts rather than standard keyword searches. The new mobile shortcut is intended to speed access to those capabilities, which Google has been building since first previewing AI Mode in March. Google has also rolled the feature out broadly to more than 180 countries and added functions such as a Canvas side panel for multisession study plans and integrations with Google Lens to query images on a desktop screen.

This week’s update also extends AI Mode’s agentic capabilities, enabling the feature to perform multistep booking tasks for users who opt into Google’s Search Labs...