Gemini 3.5 Flash Becomes the New Brain of Google Search
Google has rolled out what it calls the biggest Google Search revamp in a quarter century, centering it on the Gemini 3.5 Flash model. Flash is now the default engine behind the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search globally, bringing the same frontier-level performance and speed previously reserved for standalone AI tools directly into the search experience. Google says Gemini 3.5 Flash outperforms Gemini 3.1 Pro on coding and agentic benchmarks while running up to four times faster than competing frontier models. Within Search, this power shows up as longer, conversational queries, the ability to ask follow-up questions right inside results, and “search across modalities” using text, images, files, videos, or even open Chrome tabs as input. Instead of just returning links, AI Mode increasingly acts like an AI assistant layered on top of the web, narrowing the functional gap between Search and Gemini.
From Search Box to Multimodal Command Center
The familiar Google search bar is evolving into what the company describes as a multimodal command center. The field now expands to handle long, conversational prompts and accepts multiple input types—text, images, videos, files, and browser tabs—within the same query. Once a user hits enter, Gemini 3.5 Flash orchestrates more than a simple results page. Search can generate custom mini apps and interactive dashboards on the fly: for example, producing visualizations for complex science questions or building persistent tools like fitness trackers that blend live weather, calendar events, and location data. These experiences are driven by “agentic coding in Search,” powered by Google’s Antigravity platform, which lets users shape how widgets behave rather than just reading static answers. Traditional web results remain accessible under a “Web” tab, but the core experience is clearly shifting from information retrieval toward AI-powered interaction and computation.
Always-On AI-Powered Search Agents Redefine Queries
One of the most transformative additions is AI-powered search agents that operate in the background, continuously reasoning on a user’s behalf. Google’s new “information agents” scan the web 24/7, monitoring blogs, news, social posts, and real-time feeds across finance, shopping, and sports. Users can effectively “brain dump” their requirements—for example, criteria for an apartment hunt or conditions for tracking stock movements—and let the agent watch for updates and notify them when something changes. Google highlights scenarios like being alerted the instant a favorite athlete announces a new sneaker collaboration, without having to repeatedly search. These information agents will debut first for AI Pro and Ultra subscribers before a broader rollout. This shift turns Search from a reactive tool into a proactive, persistent assistant, steadily erasing the traditional boundary between one-off queries and ongoing, agent-managed tasks.
Agentic Booking and Personal Intelligence Push Search Into Assistant Territory
Beyond monitoring information, Search now executes tasks that previously fell squarely under the domain of digital assistants. Google is expanding its agentic booking features so users can ask Search to call and coordinate with service providers in areas like home repair, beauty, or pet care. At the same time, “personal intelligence” in AI Mode is being broadened, allowing Gemini to tap into data from services such as Gmail and Google Photos for richer, context-aware responses. Combined with Universal Cart-style shopping tools and custom UI components built through Antigravity’s agentic coding, Search starts to resemble a control layer for everyday life rather than a mere index of web links. However, these powerful features also raise concerns about notification overload and how much of a user’s daily workflow is being funneled into Google’s AI-driven ecosystem.
If Search Acts Like Gemini, What Is Gemini For?
As Google Search absorbs more Gemini-like abilities, critics are questioning whether Google’s AI lineup is becoming confusing. Traditionally, Search surfaced links from the web while Gemini acted as a conversational engine that understood, synthesized, and explained information, with multimodal input and deep integration into productivity tools. AI Overviews and AI Mode began to blur that distinction, and now the unified search box plus persistent agents push it even further. Asking a follow-up question in an AI Overview now funnels users directly into AI Mode, making the interface feel much closer to a chatbot. Commentators argue this creates an identity crisis: if Search can converse, reason, and run agents across personal data and the open web, what unique value does a separate Gemini app provide? Google’s strategy appears to be converging on Gemini as a shared intelligence layer, with branding and product boundaries still catching up.