Google Expands AI Mode to Five New Languages, Broadening Global Reach

• First Multilingual Expansion

  On September 8, 2025, Google enabled five new languages: Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, and Brazilian Portuguese, after more than six months of English-only availability. Google expands AI Mode to accept text, voice, and image uploads (via Google Lens in the Google app) to handle complex, multi-step questions; Indian outlets highlighted a Hindi example involving balcony-garden planning to demonstrate nuanced, localized responses.

• Global Rollout and Reach

  AI Mode debuted in the U.S. (March 2025), reached the U.K. and India (June 2025), and expanded to ~180 countries in August 2025. The new language support rides on that footprint, broadening access across Asia and Latin America.

• Powered by Gemini 2.5

  AI Mode uses a customized Gemini 2.5 with multimodal reasoning; in July 2025 Google added Gemini 2.5 Pro support and Deep Search inside AI Mode for more advanced queries.

• Agentic Features for Premium Users

  In August 2025, Google introduced agentic capabilities (e.g., restaurant reservations now; local service appointments and event ticket bookings planned). These are limited to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the U.S., accessible via the “Agentic capabilities in AI Mode” experiment in Labs; Ultra is $249.99/month.

• Leadership Statement

  Hema Budaraju (VP, Product Management, Search) framed the expansion as going “far beyond translation,” stressing local context and multimodal understanding for each new language.

• How to Access

  AI Mode remains available via a dedicated tab on results and a button in the search bar; Google’s help page lists supported countries and languages and notes Lens-based image queries in the Google app.

• Criticism & Traffic Concerns

  Publishers warn AI-led summaries reduce clicks. In August 2025, Google said overall organic clicks were “relatively stable,” yet a September court filing acknowledged the “open web is already in rapid decline,” underscoring industry tension as AI Mode scales.

• Future Positioning

  Google employees have hinted that AI Mode may become the default interface “soon,” signaling a deeper shift toward AI-led search experiences.

Why This Matters:

Google expands AI Mode to a multilingual scale, making it a global benchmark for AI-assisted search. This boosts competition with Perplexity and ChatGPT Search, shifting user habits from link-driven exploration to direct task completion. While end-users benefit from localized, faster answers, publishers face growing pressure from reduced referral traffic, challenging the long-term health of the open web.

This article was drafted with the assistance of generative AI. All facts and details were reviewed and confirmed by an editor prior to publication.