Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: India will be the second country to receive Google’s Search Live feature, enabling interactive voice conversations with AI and real-time information retrieval. The feature is anticipated to complement the already popular AI Mode, which has 100 million users in India.
Google has confirmed that India will be the second country after the United States to get its new Search Live feature. The feature, which was first announced at the tech giant’s I/O 2025 event in May, allows users to have a free-flowing, back-and-forth voice conversation with Google’s AI and get information from across the web.
Search Live goes beyond your usual voice-enabled interactions with the AI. Instead, Google even allows users to open their camera and tap on an object to get real-time answers. This works similarly to how the Gemini Live feature works, except that the answers on Search Live are derived in real-time from websites on the internet.
The feature is currently not available in the country, but Rajan Patel, VP Engineering, Google Search and Hema Budaraji, VP Product Management, Google Search, confirmed in a media briefing this week that the feature will soon be available in India.
Google has previously explained that the feature uses a custom version of Gemini with ‘advanced voice capabilities’. The custom model also uses a query fan-out technique to show users a wider and more diverse set of content from the web.
After its launch in India, Search Live should be available via a new icon that should be available below the search bar.
AI Mode has over 100 million monthly users, says Google:
Earlier this year, India also became the first country to receive Google’s AI Mode feature after the US. The feature allows users to have a chatbot-like experience while searching the web, similar to how Perplexity and ChatGPT work.
During the media briefing, Google shared that AI Mode has over 100 million monthly users in the US and India. Specifically in India, Google says users turn to AI Mode for queries related to education, recommendations, comparisons, writing, and step-by-step instructions.
The search giant also discussed a new feature it is planning to bring to AI Mode which would allow users to generate interactive charts or graphs on the fly. This could come in handy for sports or stock market-related searches. However, the feature is currently only available in the US, with no fixed timeline on when it will be available in India or other global markets.
Google also shared some data on AI Overviews, its auto-generated snapshots for search queries powered by Gemini. The company says AI Overviews has reached over 2 billion monthly users across 200 countries and 40 languages, and there is a 10 per cent growth in queries that use AI Overviews globally.