When Google added a new button for searching the web with generative artificial intelligence, the feature debuted with such glaring flaws, like a tendency to make things up, that I was skeptical it would become my go-to tool for finding information online.
But one year later, I confess that I have become a convert. Even though the technology remains imperfect, I am increasingly clicking the button, labeled “AI Mode,” on Google.com to type requests and immediately finish tasks that would have required many minutes with an old-school search.
It took me some experimenting to get better results from A.I. search, and the key was to tell Google to work with a small amount of information instead of crawling the web for answers. Recently, I used Google’s A.I. search for identifying a car part to do a repair, picking out a condiment at a grocery store and spotting internet scams. With a normal web search, I would have had to do multiple keyword queries and read several articles to get the job done, but Google’s A.I. essentially automated the process.
A big caveat: I recommend steering clear of using AI Mode as a regular search engine, looking for direct answers to questions. Google’s A.I. often spews misinformation — just last week, it incorrectly said a car diagnostics app could tell me whether my vehicle was ready for a smog check, a nonexistent feature.
A New York Times analysis found that roughly 10 percent of Google’s A.I.-generated answers were wrong. (Of course, an optimist would say that means 90 percent were right.) With Google processing more than five trillion searches a year, that translates to tens of millions of erroneous answers every hour; in our analysis, Google fumbled with basic facts, including historical dates, names and celebrity news.
Google said the overwhelming majority of its A.I. responses were accurate. It disputed the Times study and said it did not reflect what people were searching on Google. It also said, regarding my issue with the car diagnostics app, that search A.I. technology might misinterpret web content.
While we wait for AI Mode to get better at answering direct questions, we can still use it for other purposes where the A.I. technology is already superior to an old-school keyword search. I’ll walk through my favorite examples.
Shopping for Groceries
In my experience testing generative A.I., the technology is most reliable when you direct it to pull information from trusted sources instead of from all over the web. The same goes for Google’s A.I. search.
Take my recent visit to a local Korean grocery store as an example. I was shopping for gochujang, the fermented bean paste, and the store carried a handful of brands. I recalled seeing an episode of “America’s Test Kitchen” that featured the cooking show’s favorite gochujang brands, but I couldn’t remember which ones were top picks.
So I uploaded a photo showing all the gochujang brands carried at the store and typed this prompt: “Which of these does America’s Test Kitchen recommend?”
Google’s A.I. immediately identified the bean paste on the top shelf that received glowing reviews from the show, and I placed it in my grocery basket. That was much quicker than Googling the episode and rewatching it to find the recommended brand.
Ordering Repair Parts
A.I. search also excels at identifying objects, which was useful for a recent repair I did on my car.
A few months ago, a relative driving my car struck a pole in a parking garage, shattering the plastic housing for a side mirror. I wanted to order a replacement part. So I took a photo showing my car and the damaged mirror, drew a circle around the broken plastic, uploaded the image into AI Mode and typed, “Identify this part.”
Google’s A.I. immediately identified the part, describing it as a mirror base cover, and showed where to order it online. As a follow-up, I asked for a video demonstrating how to replace the mirror part, and the A.I. pulled up a relevant YouTube clip.
When the part arrived a few days later, I followed the video and finished the repair in 15 minutes.
Finding Flight Deals
While planning summer vacation, I realized that using Google’s A.I. to search for flight deals was better than browsing travel aggregator sites like Google Flights. That’s because I could tailor criteria to my personal situation — traveling with a toddler — in addition to price.
For a trip to Hawaii, I asked AI Mode to look up the best flight deals in July.
“Look up the best flight deals to Oahu in July,” I typed, “Keep in mind I am traveling with a toddler, so super late arrivals are out of the question.”
Google’s A.I. suggested midmorning or afternoon flights that arrived by 4 p.m. in Oahu. They weren’t the cheapest tickets available, but they were the best value for my family.
Researching Products
I’ve also used A.I. search to account for my personal preferences when narrowing down options while shopping for products, like a pair of shoes.
I said I was searching for the best pair of shoes for my foot ailment, plantar fasciitis. Google’s A.I. listed shoes that podiatrists recommend for people with plantar fasciitis.
Next, I asked the A.I. to present my options in a chart, and Google produced a table including the main features and cost of each shoe. I ended up ordering a pair made by Brooks that were on sale.
Spotting Scams
In addition to identifying objects, A.I. has come in handy for spotting the telltale signs of internet scams.
When I suspect that an online store could be scammy while shopping, I simply copy and paste the website into AI Mode to ask whether the site is legitimate. The A.I. has been quick to alert me to potentially fraudulent activity by pointing out red flags like a weird web address, unbelievably low prices and poor customer reviews.
Using A.I. for scam detection has benefited me in other surprising ways.
Last month, I ordered an engine part for my wife’s car from eBay (yes, I’ve had a lot of car problems lately) that the seller described as genuine equipment from the manufacturer Bosch.
The part arrived in a pristine Bosch box and looked like the real thing. But when I installed it, a check engine light came on.
Confused, I took a photo of the part and box and uploaded it into the A.I. search tool. It immediately flagged the item as counterfeit because of one detail I missed: The part number printed on the car part was different from the part number on the box label by a single digit.
When I shared the photos and this observation with the eBay seller, he immediately issued a refund.
