Google searched live with I/O 2025, a new AI product that brings Project Astra's multimodal AI capabilities to Google search on mobile phones. Put another way, in Search Live, in addition to listening to voice commands, AI can also see what you can see in the real world. AI provides real-time answers to questions you may have about what you can see. However, most of the new features Google has shown in its event are now available to Labs users, not to the public. Four months later, Google officially launched a search live in the US
Android and iPhone users can try out the new Search Live feature without lab experiments. The Google apps on Android and iPhone, as well as the new buttons on Google Lens allow you to have interactive voice conversations in Google's AI mode, and AI can access the camera's live video feed.
How to use search live on Android and iPhone
Google detailed the new Search Live feature in its blog post on Wednesday. Search Live works with Google and Google Lens apps, but only English is supported.
Users will need to open the Google app and tap on the new live icon that appears under the search bar (image above). Once they do that, they share a camera feed with AI, which allows them to see what they see in real time. Users can ask questions about their environment, as seen in the example Google posted to YouTube.
When using Google Lens, if the user is already pointing something to the smartphone camera, a similar procedure is available. You can tap the new live button that appears at the bottom of the screen (image below). Camera sharing is already enabled in this scenario. All you need to do is start the question and the AI will respond.
What can you do live?
Google also detailed the several types of interactions you can have in Search Live. For example, users can use searches while traveling to ask AI questions about their new environments and find points of interest. Another example involves playing board games with family and friends on vacation. Instead of reading the rules for each new game, you can engage with AI and ask questions about options on Search Live.
Google has shared several YouTube shorts videos that show that it is easy to create “the perfect matcha” for AI, and provide you with the ability to set up a home theater system setup or get help to complete your school homework. In all examples, smartphone users fire searches live on their phones, pointing their cameras around, such as kitchens, TV setups, school elephant toothpaste experiments, and asking AI mode questions about tasks at hand. AI can recognize what you see in the video stream and provide simple answers to user questions.
