Google plans to overhaul search with agentic AI in 2026, enabling users to generate custom UI apps like itineraries through search queries. The feature, powered by Gemini 3.5, represents a shift from blue links to AI-generated content, with potential for personalized, shareable mini-apps.
<p>Last year marked the beginning of Google's explicit focus on AI search, and this year's I/O <a href="https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/search-io-2026/">solidified that shift</a>. As Google's search VP Liz Reid said during the keynote, "Google search is AI search." This change is well underway, and the very reasonable objections to this path will not dissuade the company. All the metrics that matter to Google say this is the right move. But at the end of the day, Google can get whatever outcome it wants because it's just that big and influential.</p>
<p>Google started <a href="https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/03/google-is-expanding-ai-overviews-and-testing-ai-only-search-results/">testing AI Mode</a> for search just over a year ago, making the shift official at I/O 2025. You hear a lot of complaints around the Internet about how AI is changing Google's search products, but Google is getting what it wants: more searches. Reid revealed at I/O 2026 that AI Mode usage has been doubling every quarter. There are now more than 1 billion people using AI Mode every month.</p>
<p>It's not hard to see how that could be true. AI Mode invites a conversational experience—it asks <em>you</em> questions—and each of those follow-up queries counts as searches. Google has also pushed AI Mode very hard, including prominent links and nudges to get people to use its search chatbot instead of the traditional product. And unlike many of Google's other AI experiences, you don't have to pay anything to AI search. Everyone who uses Google search gets the full AI experience.</p><p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/google/2026/05/buckle-up-google-is-set-to-remake-search-with-agentic-ai-in-2026/">Read full article</a></p>
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# Buckle up: Google is set to remake search with agentic AI in 2026
Source: [https://arstechnica.com/google/2026/05/buckle-up-google-is-set-to-remake-search-with-agentic-ai-in-2026/](https://arstechnica.com/google/2026/05/buckle-up-google-is-set-to-remake-search-with-agentic-ai-in-2026/)
What is that supposed to do for you? Maybe you want to plan a family outing for the weekend, so you ask search to build an itinerary\. In that case, Search can create a UI with event suggestions, reviews, map embeds, and calendar integration\. It pulls this data from Google’s platform as well as from around the web\. The early demos of search agent dashboards actually show you the code as it’s generated, but Google is most likely going to hide this for the full rollout later this summer\. Showing a simplified workflow of chain of thought would avoid confusing the average user who just wants a pretty UI and doesn’t care that it was generated on the spot\.
You can revisit and change the dashboard by accessing your AI Mode history in the sidebar\. These generated apps can be customized with follow\-up prompts, and you can share them with others via a link\. The other party can even customize the app to their liking\. Currently, there is no way to share those modifications, but that’s something Google is exploring\. It may also be possible in the future to manually modify the code of these mini\-apps line by line\.
## Swallowing the Internet whole
The overarching trend here is fewer blue links and more AI\-generated everything\. Google says the greater efficiency of Gemini 3\.5 Flash enables all these new AI experiences, and we can expect more of them in the future\. The agentic app generation in particular may benefit from the pending improvements in Gemini 3\.5 Pro, which might even be available before everyone gets search agents\.
Search’s agentic transformation\.
Googlers talk about these moves as a way to more efficiently extract the information people want from webpages that have become weighed down with extraneous text that forces you to scroll past more and more ads\. That is a genuine problem with the current state of web content, but Google’s hands aren’t clean\. Many websites have ended up in this state only after years of chasing search rank and compensating for low ad rates\.
Despite what many see as a decline in Google search quality, the company’s search products remain far and away the primary way people find things online\. Even after a year of Google’s AI search overhaul, DuckDuckGo, Bing, Brave, and the rest of the competition continue to be little more than a rounding error\. Google appears to take its continued dominance and growth as proof that it’s on the right track with AI\.
Google has decided this is how search works, and the rest of us are just along for the ride\.
Google announces AI agents integrated into Search, allowing users to set up proactive information monitoring and booking tasks, alongside the Gemini 3.5 Flash model update.
Google unveiled the biggest changes to Search at I/O 2026, including a redesigned search box with AI Overviews and AI Mode powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash, AI agents for Pro/Ultra subscribers, and generative UI for building apps in Search.
Google announced the biggest upgrade to Search in over 25 years, introducing an AI-powered Search box and AI agents powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash, along with new information agents that operate 24/7.
Google at its I/O 2026 keynote announced new agentic AI features, Gemini 3.5 model updates, an intelligent search box with generative UI, and Android-powered smart glasses, aiming to embed AI agents across its services.
Google is rolling out AI-generated ads and shopping features within Search and AI Mode, using its Gemini chatbot to create product explainers and enable conversational ad interactions.