In recent days, Google has been experimenting with several locations for its upcoming AI-powered search interface.
AI may not replace everyone, but it could spell the end of a web relic. In recent days, several American users have reported on X or Threads that Google is testing different placements for AI Mode, its new AI-powered search interface. The tool has been spotted, depending on the case, in the search bar next to the Search by Image feature, or in place of the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.
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Google looking for a home for AI Mode
But where will Google’s promising AI-powered interface, capable of providing comprehensive answers to queries “requiring more in-depth exploration,” be positioned? This is the question that seems to be troubling the Mountain View firm’s engineers in recent days. The tool, which is supposed to be more feature-rich and versatile than AI Overviews, originally seemed to be intended to take the form of a tab in the Search interface. When it was unveiled in March, it appeared alongside the Images, Videos, and News tabs, as shown in the video below.
But the question seems far from settled, as the tool is still in its experimental phase and its release date has yet to be announced. On May 1, 2025, Google announced that it would appear as a tab for a “small percentage of users” in the United States. Since then, AI Mode has appeared in several locations, including in place of the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. Its appearance may also vary slightly depending on the user.
Is this new? Ai Mode button on the Google search box on the https://t.co/LevOxulRt9 homepage @rustybrick @glenngabe pic.twitter.com/r7tQcQqtj5
— Damien (andell) (@AndellDam) May 10, 2025
“It’s just one experience among many.”
But the few fans of the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button can rest assured: there is no indication, for the moment, that this historic feature of the search engine is destined to disappear completely. “We often test different ways to allow our users to access our features,” reminded Ashley Thompson, Google spokesperson, to the specialized media The Verge. “This is just one experiment among many others.”
Deployed in the late 1990s, the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button aims to save users time by automatically redirecting them to the first result—supposedly the most relevant. Rarely used in practice, it was slightly modified in 2012 to include fun query suggestions when hovering over it, but was never removed, as Google categorically refused to part with it. It would be rather ironic to remove it now: by leveraging the capabilities of Gemini 2.0, the language model that powers AI Mode, it would never have lived up to its name so well.
