Google AI Mode: what it can do and how to search without AI

This article is an overview based on vendor information, documentation and publicly available reporting, not a scored test of our own. Prices and features change quickly; the vendor's own terms always take precedence. We only score what we have used ourselves for weeks: those tools are listed under AI tools compared.

AI Mode and AI Overviews: two different things

Google has built two AI features into search in Germany, and they are often confused. AI Overviews ("Übersicht mit KI") have been available since 26 March 2025: a box above the usual results that sums up the answer in a few paragraphs. The familiar blue links follow below.

AI Mode ("KI-Modus") has been available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since 8 October 2025 and goes further. It replaces the list of results with a conversation: you ask a question, get a written answer with source links and can follow up without starting over. Behind the scenes, Google splits the question into subtopics and searches all of them at once; Google calls this "query fan-out".

The answers come from a customised version of Google's language model Gemini. Since May 2026 Gemini 3.5 Flash has been the default model; subscribers to Google AI Pro and Ultra can choose stronger models by hand, initially for English-language queries only.

How to open AI Mode

There are four ways in. Below the search box on google.de there is an "AI Mode" button, and after a normal search it appears as a tab next to Images and News. It can be reached directly at google.com/ai. The Google app for Android and iOS has its own icon, and Chrome has a button on the right of the address bar.

Questions can be typed, spoken or asked with a photo, of a plant or a rating plate, for example. Since 26 March 2026 the Google app has also offered Search Live: a spoken conversation in which the camera shows what you are asking about. Earlier conversations are listed in a sidebar as long as history is switched on.

Some features Google demonstrates in the United States are still missing here. The thorough research mode Deep Search is available only in English and with a subscription, and when Google extended table bookings through AI Mode to eight countries in April 2026, Germany was not one of them.

Where it helps, and where it goes wrong

AI Mode is strong on questions with several conditions that would otherwise take five searches: a hike under three hours, suitable for a pushchair, reachable by train. It summarises, compares and names the pages it relies on. For a first orientation, that saves time.

Its weakness is shared by every language model: it writes fluently even when it is wrong. How costly that can be is shown by a case involving AI Overviews, which rely on the same technology. On 28 May 2026 the Munich I Regional Court issued an injunction prohibiting Google from wrongly linking two Munich publishers to fraud in AI summaries; the decision is not yet final.

For health, money and law, the rule is therefore to open the linked sources before acting. If you mainly want answers with evidence, Perplexity serves you well, since it footnotes every statement; ChatGPT can also search the web on request. Which assistant suits which task is covered in our article on ChatGPT alternatives.

Switching it off: not officially possible

There is no switch that permanently turns off AI Mode or AI Overviews. Google's help page is clear: search features cannot be deactivated, but you can select the "Web" filter. AI Mode only appears when you open it anyway; AI Overviews, by contrast, are shown by Google of its own accord for many queries.

Only the button in Chrome can be removed: right-click in the address bar and click "Always show AI Mode" so that the tick disappears. That does not change search itself.

Three ways to use Google search without AI

The simplest route is the "Web" filter. After a search it sits in the row of tabs, sometimes under "More", and shows only the classic list of websites, without the AI box and without info panels. Technically it adds udm=14 to the search address.

It becomes permanent if you create your own search engine in the browser. In Chrome, go to Settings, Search engine, "Manage search engines and site search", Add: enter https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14 as the address and make the entry the default. Firefox, Edge and Safari with a suitable extension offer the same. According to current guides the trick still works in September 2026; Google gives no guarantee that it will stay that way.

The widespread tip of adding "-ai" to a query is unreliable: sometimes the box disappears, sometimes it does not, and the search becomes less precise. If you want out altogether, switch search engines; it is worth checking the settings there too, since many now offer AI answers.

What Google stores

Conversations in AI Mode are saved to history if it is switched on. In the sidebar they can be removed one by one or with "Delete all"; Google points out that deleted entries may still show up under My Activity for a while. To handle this automatically, set an auto-delete period of three, 18 or 36 months at myactivity.google.com.

Google says it uses these interactions to improve the service. Since May 2026 AI Mode can optionally be connected to Gmail and Google Photos so that it can answer personal questions; this is voluntary and requires users to be 18 or older. As with any AI service, confidential information does not belong in the search box; the basic rules are in our article on the GDPR and the AI Act.

Google has so far tested ads inside AI answers only in other markets. As of September 2026 no ads have been confirmed in AI Mode in Germany.

The fight over clicks

For websites, AI Mode is a problem because fewer people click through to the sources. In July 2025 the Pew Research Center found in the United States that users clicked on a result in only 8 per cent of searches with an AI summary, against 15 per cent without one. In February 2026 SISTRIX found for Germany that the click-through rate for position one drops from 27 to 11 per cent when an AI Overview sits above it.

Sixteen associations and organisations, including the newspaper publishers' association BDZV and the journalists' union DJV, filed a complaint under the Digital Services Act with the Federal Network Agency in September 2025. Since December 2025 the European Commission has been examining under competition law how Google uses publishers' content for its AI answers, and since July 2026 Germany's media regulators have treated AI search as a service subject to German media law. The outcome is open.

Who AI Mode is worth it for

For planning questions with many conditions, for a quick overview of an unfamiliar topic and for questions about a photo, AI Mode is a real step forward from the list of links. For finding a specific website, current news or reliable figures, classic search with the "Web" filter remains the better choice.

If you already use an AI assistant, you will get similar answers there, with more control over history and data use. All the assistants we have tested, with scores and data protection ratings, are in the AI assistants & chatbots category.

In short: AI Mode is Google search as a conversation, available in German since October 2025. It cannot be switched off but can be bypassed: with the "Web" filter, or permanently with a custom browser search engine that adds &udm=14. Check sources, clear the history regularly and keep confidential details out of it.