Google is bringing its AI-powered conversational search feature, Search Live, to India. The feature is launching in English and Hindi. The company is also expanding its AI Mode to seven new Indian languages as it strengthens its presence in one of its fastest-growing markets.
Search Live was first introduced in the U.S. in July. It builds on Google’s Project Astra technology and is available through the company’s AI Mode. The feature allows users to point their phone camera at objects to get real-time assistance. It supports back-and-forth conversations that use the visual context from the camera feed.
With this launch, India becomes the second market after the U.S. to get Search Live. This is a logical move given the country’s vast base of early AI adopters, who have helped Google grow products like the Gemini Nano model. Google plans to leverage India’s early adoption to train its systems on a wider range of visual contexts, which will make Search Live more capable over time.
A Google executive stated that people in India are power users of multimodal search, forming the largest user base for both voice and visual search globally.
Search Live is starting to roll out to users in India now and will reach more people over the coming weeks. Once available, users can access it by tapping the Live icon under the search bar in the Google app, or by opening Lens and selecting Live from the bottom of the screen.
Earlier this year, Google revealed that Search Live is powered by a custom version of Gemini. The separate Gemini app includes a similarly named feature called Gemini Live, which was introduced in May and offers a comparable experience. This overlap could easily confuse some users.
Google has also expanded its AI Mode to seven Indian languages: Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. This is part of a global AI Mode expansion, which will be available in more than 35 new languages and 40 new countries and territories. This makes the AI-powered search experience accessible in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.
Google’s AI Mode debuted in the U.S. in March and rolled out to more U.S. users in May. It lets users ask complex, multi-part questions through an AI-powered interface. It launched in India in June and expanded globally in August. Last month, Google added five new languages, including Hindi, to the feature.
The company stated that the advanced reasoning and multimodal understanding of its custom Gemini model for Search allows AI Mode to grasp the subtleties of local languages, ensuring it is helpful and relevant in all the new languages it introduces.
Google’s AI Mode and other AI features, including AI Overviews, have faced criticism for potentially reducing search traffic to online publishers. The company, however, has denied that its AI-driven search tools are hurting website visits.