AI Search
Profound Raised $180 Million to Get Your Brand Into the AI's Answer
Profound just raised $180M at a $1.8B valuation to get brands named inside AI answers - the new SEO for a world where people ask a chatbot instead of clicking blue links.
Google AI Mode review
8.6/10★★★★★Free AI answers inside Google Search, with follow-ups, photo and voice search
- Best for
- Anyone who wants AI answers without leaving Google or paying
- Price
- Freemium · from £4.49/month
Free: AI Mode is free in Google Search - Platforms
- Web, iOS, Android
- Made by
- Google, Mountain View, USA · since 1998
- App store ratings
- iOS 4.6★ (5.3M) · Android 4★ (29.5M)
What it is
AI Mode turns Google Search into a conversation: it writes an answer with links to its sources, and you can keep asking follow-ups. You can type, speak, upload a photo or file, or talk live with Search Live. It's free, runs on Gemini 3.5 Flash by default, and passed one billion monthly users in May 2026.
Latest: On 15 October 2026 Google added more inline links to AI Mode answers and began testing a section that highlights official websites.
What the AI does
- Conversational answers with links to sources
- Search with text, voice, photos, files or video
- Search Live spoken conversations
- Deep Search in selected countries
- Personal Intelligence using Gmail and Google Photos
- Interactive visuals and simulations
Pros and cons
- Free, with no new app or sign-up
- Google's huge index and local, shopping and travel data
- Best multimodal search: photo, voice and live video
- More inline links to sources since October 2026
- Answer quality is uneven on hard or niche questions
- Personalisation means sharing more data with Google
- Google labels AI Mode experimental and warns it can make mistakes
How it scores
The best free AI search for most people, but answers on hard questions are shallower than Perplexity's.
Feature checklist · 6 of 9
- Inline citations linked to each source (yes)
- Follow-up questions that keep the context (yes)
- Deeper multi-step research mode (yes)
- Search with a photo or image (yes)
- Choose which AI model answers (no)
- Works without an account (yes)
- Ad-free results (free or on a paid plan) (no)
- Doesn't profile you or train AI on your searches (no)
- iPhone and Android apps (yes)
Alternatives
See all Google AI Mode alternatives, ranked →
- Perplexity 8.8/10Getting a quick, sourced answer you can check claim by claim
- ChatGPT search 8.4/10Searches that are one step in a longer task
- Brave Search 8.3/10Privacy-minded people who want free AI answers without a Google account
- Kagi 7.8/10Heavy searchers happy to pay for ad-free results and model choice
Perplexity vs Google AI ModeGoogle AI Mode vs ChatGPT searchGoogle AI Mode vs Brave Search
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Sources
- AI Mode (Google Search)
- Google Search's I/O 2026 updates (Google blog)
- AI Mode and AI Overviews updates to explore the web (Google blog, Oct 2026)
- Google AI plans
- Best AI search engines in 2026 (Dupple, updated Sept 2026)
- Google tests AI-focused homepage for signed-out users (Search Engine Watch)
- Google on the App Store
- Google on Google Play
▸▸ Google AI Mode in the news
AI
Profound Went From $1B to $1.8B in Seven Months by Selling Brands a Seat Inside AI Answers
Profound raised a $180M Series D at a $1.8B valuation to get brands named inside ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity answers — the AI-era rewrite of SEO.