September 10, 2025
TOKYO – Google LLC has expanded the range of languages supported in its AI Mode search service to include Japanese. The new options started to become available to users on Tuesday.
The free artificial intelligence-based search service can now help users get answers to complex questions in a single search in Japanese, Indonesian, Korean, Hindi or Brazilian Portuguese, in addition to English.
With Google’s proprietary Gemini 2.5 AI, which analyzes information online, now added to the Search function, users can obtain answers by typing what they want to know into the search bar in a conversational style.
Typing in “Tell me what equipment is needed to brew coffee, depending on brewing method, as well as how easy it is to use and how it affects the taste,” for example, will display a comparison list of brewing devices and the flavor characteristics they create. The search results page also shows links to the sources referenced by the AI to create its answer.
“With this expansion, more people can now use AI Mode to ask complex questions in their preferred language, while exploring the web more deeply” through the links offered by the search results, Hema Budaraju, a senior official of Google’s search department, said in a statement.
In May, Google launched AI Mode in the United States, following its release of AI Overviews, which can take the work out of searching by providing AI-generated summaries of key information. The company is believed to have been spurred to do this by its strong concern over the declining popularity of Google searches due to the emergence of ChatGPT and other conversational AI models.
Google has about a 90% share of the online search market, and advertising revenue from Google searches accounts for nearly 60% of parent company Alphabet Inc.’s revenue. However, the company’s share of the search market reportedly could drop below 50% within the next five years.
According to a July report by the Pew Research Center, a U.S. research organization, many Google search users are satisfied with its AI-generated summaries, which reduce the frequency at which users click on displayed links to 8% from 15%. Due to the spread of AI search functions, the number of visitors to U.S. news website Business Insider has halved over the past three years.
The introduction of AI Mode is expected to accelerate this trend in the future.
In May, News/Media Alliance, a nonprofit organization of more than 2,200 U.S. publishers, expressed concern that AI mode will further deprive “publishers of original content both traffic and revenue.”