Google’s AI Mode is getting a new feature: Search Live. This is like Gemini Live, but inside the Google app for iOS and Android. It’s currently limited to users in the US, who are enrolled into the AI Mode experiment in Labs.
Like Gemini Live, it lets you have “a free-flowing, back-and-forth voice conversation with Search”, Google says. The company bills it as the perfect way to search when you’re on the go or multitasking. You just need to open the Google app, tap the new Live icon, and then speak your question. You can then follow-up with another question, and so on. You’ll get “easy-to-access links right on your screen so you can dig deeper with content from the web”, according to Google.
Search Live works in the background too, so you can continue the conversation even while you’re in another app. And the Transcript option will switch you into a text mode. With AI Mode history, you can always revisit a specific response and pick up where you left off.
The only question here is why does this need to exist when Gemini Live already does, and on Android is much easier to access. Why can’t both of these “Live” AI things by Google be the same thing? We don’t know. Search Live uses a custom version of Gemini with advanced voice capabilities, Google says. In the coming months, it will let you use your camera when you talk back-and-forth so you can show it what you’re seeing in real time – again, just like Gemini Live.