Google is significantly boosting its presence in one of its fastest-growing markets, India, by rolling out its AI-powered conversational search feature, Search Live, and expanding its AI Mode to support several new Indian languages.
Search Live Comes to India
India is now the second market, after the U.S., to receive Search Live, a feature built on Google’s Project Astra technology. Launching in both English and Hindi, the tool allows users to point their phone camera at real-world objects to get real-time, conversational assistance. It supports back-and-forth dialogue that draws on the visual context from the camera feed.
This launch is a strategic move, leveraging India’s large base of early AI adopters.
“People in India are power users of multimodal search, forming our largest user base for both voice and visual search globally,” said Hema Budaraju, vice president of product management for Search at Google.
Google plans to use India’s high usage to train its systems on a wider range of visual contexts, which will make Search Live more capable over time.
Users in India can access the feature by tapping the “Live” icon under the search bar in the Google app or by selecting “Live” within the Lens interface. It’s important to note the potential for user confusion, as the Gemini app separately includes a feature with a similar name, Gemini Live.
AI Mode Expands to Seven New Indian Languages
In addition to Search Live, Google is strengthening its foundational AI tools by expanding its core AI Mode (the interface for asking complex, multi-part questions) to seven new Indian languages:
- Bengali
- Kannada
- Malayalam
- Marathi
- Tamil
- Telugu
- Urdu
This is part of a larger global expansion that will make the AI-powered search experience available in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.
The company stresses that its custom Gemini model for Search is crucial to this expansion. Budaraju noted, “The advanced reasoning and multimodal understanding of our custom Gemini model for Search allows AI Mode to truly grasp the subtleties of local languages, ensuring AI Mode is genuinely helpful and relevant in all the new languages we introduce.”
While Google’s AI features, including AI Mode and AI Overviews, have been criticized by some for potentially reducing referral traffic to online publishers, the company continues to deny that its AI-driven search tools are negatively impacting website visits.
