Google Search's AI Functionality now extends to managing PDFs, images, and other types of content - a list of additions detailed below.
Google has unveiled a suite of AI-driven enhancements to its search engine, aimed at improving research, learning, and interactive experiences. Key features include Canvas, Search Live, and Deep Search with Gemini 2.5 Pro.
Canvas: Your Flexible Workspace
Canvas, a side panel tool within AI Mode in Search, serves as a dynamic workspace that helps users organise plans or content generated during AI interactions. It allows you to create outlines, study guides, travel itineraries, shopping lists, or creative project plans. Canvas supports iterative refinement across multiple sessions, and soon will enable uploading personal files like class notes or syllabi to tailor responses.
Search Live: Real-Time Learning with AI
Search Live integrates live video with AI Mode through Google Lens on mobile devices. By pointing your phone camera at objects or diagrams, you can initiate a conversation with AI Mode that responds to your questions in real-time as you move or adjust the view. This feature, powered in part by Google’s Project Astra, simulates having an expert explain what you see, bringing an interactive, immersive learning feel.
Deep Search: Your Advanced Research Assistant
The Deep Search capability powered by the Gemini 2.5 Pro model represents a more advanced research assistant embedded in AI Mode. It can perform hundreds of searches simultaneously, synthesize information across disparate sources, and generate comprehensive, fully-cited reports swiftly. This allows users to save hours on in-depth research for complex topics.
Additional Enhancements
Additional enhancements include support for querying images and PDFs directly within AI Mode on desktop. Users can upload PDFs like lecture slides or legal documents and ask complex questions about their content. The AI cross-references the documents with web information to provide detailed, contextual answers accompanied by citations. This functionality was previously mobile-only for images but is now expanding to desktop and will soon support PDF uploads with further file type support planned.
These updates are initially available in the U.S. as part of the AI Mode Labs experiment for Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers, with rollout ongoing. The new "Ask Google about this page" feature in Chrome is starting to roll out soon, and the ability to ask questions about uploaded PDFs is rolling out to desktop browsers over the next few weeks.
In summary, Google’s new AI Search features enhance how users research, organise information, and interact with visual content, leveraging advanced large language models and computer vision to create a richer, more interactive search experience. The tool, Search Live, is designed to feel like having an expert explain something as you look at it, while Canvas allows users to create an outline or plan for a study guide, travel itinerary, shopping list, or creative project.
Technology is integrated into Search Live, enabling users to initiate real-time conversations with AI Mode through Google Lens on mobile devices, simulating the presence of an expert. The Canvas workspace within AI Mode utilizes technology to create an organized space for users to collaborate on plans, study guides, shopping lists, or creative projects across multiple sessions.
