Google's AI Mode now lets you ask complex questions using photos and Google Lens

Google has announced it is expanding its AI Mode, which is the Google Search feature that enables users to ask complex, multi-part questions.

Now, the feature is gaining the ability to incorporate multimodal search, thanks to the power of Google Lens.

In a blog post on Monday, Google detailed how users will be able to upload a photo or point their camera at something and then ask a question about what they’re seeing.

AI Mode will be able to analyse the entire scene, including the relationships between objects, the materials they’re made from, the colours, shapes and how they’re arranged.

So, for example, if you take a photo of your bookshelf and ask: “If I enjoyed these, what are some similar books that are highly rated?” AI Mode will pick out the books and recommend others, with links to find out more or buy them.

You’ll also be able to ask follow up questions to narrow down your search further. For example you could ask for the shortest of the recommended reads.

Initially, this feature was only available to Google One AI Premium subscribers. Now it’s available to millions more users enrolled in Labs, which is Google’s experimental features programme.

AI Mode only launched last month and is designed to take on services like Perplexity and OpenAI’s ChatGPT Search. It uses a custom version of Gemini 2.0 to deliver nuanced AI-generated responses.

The new multimodal functionality is available through the Google app on Android and iOS. It also integrates with Google Lens.