If you tried to Google something recently and felt as if things looked a little different, it's not just your imagination.
Some users are seeing a redesigned Google homepage that removes the familiar Google Search button and replaces it with shortcuts for AI Mode, Create images, Ask about files and Brainstorm.
It’s only a test for now, but it’s hard to ignore what Google is putting in the Search button’s place. I've been writing about AI replacing the internet as we know it for the past several months.
For more than 25 years, Google’s homepage has barely changed. You type something into the search box, hit Google Search, and get a page of results. Now, Google appears to be experimenting with turning that same box into a chatbot window.
Google Search is starting to look a lot more like ChatGPT or Gemini
In the experimental layout, Google’s traditional search field is surrounded by tools that encourage you to do something other than type a keyword and look through links.
There’s AI Mode, which lets you ask longer questions and continue the conversation with follow-ups, you can ask about files or even create an image with Nano Banana. Interestingly, I’m Feeling Lucky is still there, but the old Google Search button is not.
Sure, you can still type a query, but the experience will be much different as Google is replacing classic search with AI Overviews and Summaries.
Google Search VP Robby Stein responded to people spotting the change and said the company isn't getting rid of traditional search.
"This is a small test on desktop to help people find new things they can do with Search. No impact to how the core search box works – just add your question and hit enter as usual," Stein said.
So, no, the Google Search button has not officially been killed off, but all signs seem to point that direction. If anything, the test still tells us quite a bit about where Google wants Search to go.
The end of Google Search as we know it
AI Mode has already pushed Google beyond the traditional search-results page by letting users ask complicated questions, follow up on answers and get information synthesized across multiple sources. Google has also been building more image, file and multimodal capabilities directly into Search.
Putting shortcuts to those tools on Google.com takes that strategy one step further. Google isn't just adding AI to Search anymore. It's experimenting with making AI the starting point.
We're being taught a new way to Google, which is ironic considering Google trained us how to search in the first place. But generative AI has changed everything, which is why Google's experimental homepage appears to be designed around the same behavior.
Keywords don't matter anymore, especially when you can search with an image or an uploaded file. The direction we are headed is a fundamentally different relationship with a search engine than we've ever seen.
Big consequences for the web
There is an obvious downside to all of this, particularly for websites that depend on Google traffic. The more Google answers a question inside its own interface, the less reason there is for someone to click through to another website.
That tension already exists with AI Overviews and AI Mode. A homepage that actively steers people toward AI responses rather than traditional search results could accelerate it.
It also puts Google into even more direct competition with ChatGPT and other AI assistants.
The Google homepage remains some of the most valuable real estate on the internet. If Google starts using it to promote image generation, document analysis, brainstorming and conversational AI, it is effectively turning google.com into a general-purpose AI interface.
And Google has one enormous advantage: billions of people already know exactly where to find it.
The takeaway
Google is very clear that removing the Search button is currently just a test, so I wouldn't declare the death of the Search button yet. But even if the Search button disappears tomorrow, the damage to the internet has already been done. The button was just a symbol at best.
The takeaway is what Google has decided is important enough to replace the Search button with: AI Mode. Image generation. File analysis. Brainstorming.
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