Google’s AI Mode will soon do the ‘tedious’ part of search for you in the background [Video]

Ben Schoon | May 20 2025 - 11:30 am PT

Google is teasing new features for AI Mode, including the ability for it to act as an agent of the web on your behalf, completing research in the background to save you time, and it looks pretty handy.

One major focus for where AI can go next is in acting as an “agent” for the user. After receiving a set of commands, the agent effectively does the grunt work of a task. In the case of Google Search, this means AI Mode is able to act as an agent and surf the web on your behalf, helping you to more easily research a topic.

This new agentic capability in AI Mode is based on Google’s Project Mariner, which the company first previewed back in 2024.

In Google’s example of this functionality, the user asks for AI Mode to find tickets to a baseball game, specifying that the tickets should be affordable and “in the lower level” of the park. Normally, such a search would require the user to spend at least a few minutes digging through links provided by Google Search to find the best price, the right seats, and so on. AI Mode’s agent does this in a few minutes – in the background, as the app doesn’t need to be open – and spits out a summary of several different ticket options that it found, while providing a quick link to ticket-sellers that can let you complete the process.

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While this is probably an idealized example, the applications for this are pretty much endless, and it could be a powerful tool. To start, though, it will be limited to just three types of tasks – event tickets, restaurant reservations, and local appointments.

Google says:

Often you come to Search to get something done, and now we’re bringing the agentic capabilities of Project Mariner into AI Mode, to help save you time with tasks like purchasing tickets. Just ask, “Find 2 affordable tickets for this Saturday’s Reds game in the lower level” and AI Mode will kick off a query fan-out, looking across sites to analyze hundreds of potential ticket options with real-time pricing and inventory, and handle the tedious work of filling in forms. AI Mode will present ticket options that meet your exact criteria, and you can complete the purchase on whichever site you prefer – saving you time while keeping you in control.

This will start with event tickets, restaurant reservations and local appointments. And we’ll be working with companies like Ticketmaster, StubHub, Resy and Vagaro to create a seamless and helpful experience.

Agents in AI Mode, and all of the other new AI Mode features Google announced at I/O, will be launching “over the coming weeks and months” for users signed up for Labs experiments.