According to Neowin, Google is bringing its AI Mode shortcut to Chrome on iOS and Android starting Wednesday, expanding from its desktop-only March launch. The feature uses Gemini 2.5’s advanced reasoning for text, voice, and image queries and appears as a dedicated button on the New Tab page alongside Incognito mode. Availability begins in the U.S. before gradually expanding to 160 countries and languages including Hindi, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese. AI Mode recently gained agentic capabilities for booking restaurant reservations, event tickets, and flights. Originally limited to Google AI Ultra subscribers, these capabilities are now available to anyone subscribed through Google Labs, with AI Pro and Ultra users getting higher limits.
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The mobile AI arms race heats up
This move is basically Google‘s counterpunch to the growing trend of people jumping between apps for AI assistance. Instead of opening ChatGPT or another standalone AI app, they want you to stay right there in Chrome. And honestly, it makes sense – why leave your browser when the AI can live right where you’re already searching?
Here’s the thing though: we’re seeing a fundamental shift in how companies approach AI distribution. It’s no longer about building the best standalone chatbot – it’s about embedding AI everywhere people already are. Google’s putting their AI directly in the search bar, Microsoft’s got Copilot in Windows, and Apple’s rumored to be baking AI deep into iOS 18. The battleground has moved from “who has the best AI” to “who can put AI in front of the most users at the right moment.”
Where this is all heading
The agentic capabilities are what really interest me. Booking flights and restaurant reservations through an AI that lives in your browser? That’s moving beyond simple Q&A into actual task completion. We’re talking about AI that doesn’t just answer questions – it takes action.
But let’s be real – this also raises some serious questions about trust and control. Do we really want AI automatically making reservations and purchases? What happens when it books the wrong flight or reserves a table at the wrong restaurant? Google’s making this optional for now, which is smart, but you have to wonder how long before they start pushing it more aggressively.
The gradual rollout to 160 countries suggests Google’s being careful with this expansion. They learned from the AI Overviews backlash that people get nervous when AI feels forced upon them. By making this a button you have to actively press, they’re giving users control while still making the capability available. It’s a smarter approach than just shoving AI into every search result whether people want it or not.
