Google’s latest upgrade to Search turns a familiar text box into something closer to a personal assistant that has read your life story. By wiring its new AI Mode directly into Gmail and Google Photos, the company is inviting users to let its systems learn from years of emails, receipts, itineraries, and snapshots. The result is a feature that does not just guess what you might want to know, it can now surface what it already knows about you.
I see this shift as a rare moment when the scale of Google’s data collection becomes visible in everyday use. Instead of quietly shaping ads and autocomplete suggestions in the background, the company’s generative models are starting to show their work, answering questions with details pulled from your own archive. That is powerful, convenient, and, for anyone who has ever wondered “What Does Google Know About Me,” potentially unsettling.
AI Mode turns Search into a mirror of your digital life
At the core of this change is AI Mode in Google Search, which the company describes as a way to move from surfacing information to surfacing intelligence. When I type a question into the familiar Google homepage, AI Mode can now decide whether my answer lives on the public web or inside my personal accounts. If I opt in, it can look at my Gmail and Google Photos, then respond with a synthesized answer that blends general knowledge with my own context.
Google says this personal layer is available to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers who connect Gmail and Google Photos to AI Mode in Search for more tailored help. In its own description, the company frames this as “personal intelligence,” a way for Jan and other users to get uniquely relevant responses while reminding them that generative AI is experimental and optional. That positioning, laid out in its General overview of the feature, underscores how central personalization has become to the future of Search.
From Per-style demos to everyday planning assistant
In Google’s own demos, the company leans heavily on lifestyle scenarios to show what this looks like in practice. A promotional walkthrough introduces an AI helper, Per, that lives inside Search and can pull together restaurant ideas, hotel options, and packing suggestions for your next trip. Instead of clicking through a dozen blue links, you might ask for a weekend plan and watch the assistant combine public reviews with your past travel habits and photos to suggest an itinerary.
The same demo emphasizes a “privacy-first design” that keeps you in control of what Per can see, and walks through a step-by-step guide that encourages users to check facts independently before forming conclusions. That framing, presented in a Google video, is meant to reassure users that even as Search becomes more intimate, they should still treat AI responses as starting points, not final verdicts.
What Google already knows about you, now in plain view
To understand why AI Mode feels so different, it helps to remember how much data Google has already been collecting. Every time I search, watch a YouTube clip, navigate with Maps, or check email, I leave a trail of signals that can be tied back to my account. Privacy advocates have long pointed out that this includes search history, location records, and browsing activity that can reveal “every place you have been,” along with personal details that are not encrypted by default. One detailed explainer on What Does Google spells out how Did and Google can piece together a remarkably complete profile from this exhaust.
Google has typically justified this collection as the price of “more personalized experiences,” from faster searches to more helpful app and ad recommendations. The company’s own settings pages explain that it uses this data to tailor results and services, while also offering tools to pause or delete activity. A practical guide to taking control of your account notes that Google relies on this information to power everything from autocomplete to location-based alerts, and then walks through what to do next if you want to dial that back.
Gmail, Smart Features, and the new AI reading your inbox
The leap with AI Mode is that Google is no longer just using this data behind the scenes, it is actively reading and summarizing your personal content on demand. Earlier this month, the company rolled out new AI features in Gmail that can access your entire Gmail history by default when you invoke the assistant. In a product video, the narrator explains that Jan and other users can ask the system to find old receipts, summarize long threads, or draft replies based on past conversations, all by letting the AI parse years of messages at once. That capability is showcased in a Gmail demo that makes clear how deeply the model can reach into your inbox.
At the same time, privacy lawyers have urged Gmail users to revisit long-standing “Smart Features” that already scan email content to power things like automatic categorization and predictive replies. One legal advisory notes that Gmail users are being urged to review and disable two key Smart Features settings after concerns about transparency and data use, arguing that people may not fully grasp how their messages feed into broader machine learning systems. That warning, aimed squarely at Gmail users, lands differently now that the same data can be piped into AI Mode in Search for personalized answers.
AI Overviews, Gemini 3, and the personal context switch
AI Mode does not exist in a vacuum, it sits on top of a broader shift in how Google Search works. The company first introduced AI Overviews to summarize web results, then expanded that approach with a dedicated AI Mode that can reason across multiple sources. In a technical update, Google explains that personal context in AI Mode is strictly opt in, and that users can connect or disconnect it at any time if they decide they no longer want their Gmail or Photos feeding into responses. That promise of reversibility is spelled out in its description of personal context inside Google Search.
More recently, Google has started pairing AI Mode with Gemini 3, its latest model for AI Overviews, and positioning this as the default experience for complex queries. Company executives say that People come to Search for everything from quick sports scores to intricate planning questions, and that Gemini 3 is now the primary model for AI Overviews globally. A report on this rollout notes that People who enable AI Mode can expect the system to detect when a question would benefit from this deeper reasoning and automatically switch into a more conversational, context-aware response.
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