Google I/O dropped a wave of AI Search and Agentic Commerce announcements yesterday—highlighting how they’re evolving in an era of unprecedented competition from OpenAI, Anthropic, and others—and most of them landed exactly where we expected.

We’ve been predicting that Google would lean hard into its scale to advance its AI ambitions within AI Search and Agentic Commerce, and I/O confirmed that’s well underway.

But despite the volume of news, our recommendations aren’t changing. Google’s new capabilities are still built on the same fundamentals that drive performance: quality content, strong site experiences for bots and users, and a robust, accurate product graph.

AI is accelerating search evolution. It’s not rewriting what already works. Read on for our four biggest Google I/O takeaways:

I/O Takeaway #1: AI Mode hit 1B Monthly Users in Year 1 + Searches on Google Reach an All Time High

Announced at last year’s Google I/O, AI Mode has already surpassed 1B monthly users, a prime example of Google using its scale to advance its AI search position. The next move is straightforward: infuse AI Overviews throughout the SERP and fold AI Mode into them, which is already underway.

Google also shared how users are engaging with AI Mode:

• Search is multimodal: 1 in 6 searches now use voice or images, with image search growing 40% MoM
• Queries are getting longer: The average AI Mode query is 3x longer than a traditional search
• Use cases are expanding: Planning and brainstorming queries have grown 80% and 30% faster than overall AI Mode queries in the last six months

Ovative Experts: AI Mode Is Scaling Fast, But the Bigger Story Is How People Are Using It

While the growth is impressive, context matters. Google.com still drives roughly 90 billion visits per month. The more telling insight is the behavioral shift: users are bringing longer, more complex problems to Google than ever before.

Brands that invest in content depth and conversational relevance to real user needs will be best positioned to win as that shift continues.

I/O Takeaway #2: Search is becoming more Agentic

Google announced “a new era of Search agents,” AI-powered agents users can configure for a range of tasks. Blending Gemini’s agentic capabilities with Google’s crawling and indexing ecosystem and a product graph of over 60 billion listings, Search agents can:

• Monitor your favorite band’s tour schedule and notify you when dates drop in your city
• Track a product’s price across retailers and buy it automatically once it hits your target
• Book local services and call businesses on your behalf (home repair, beauty, pet care, and more)

These are strong applications of Google’s AI capabilities, delivering real value for search journeys that are either tedious or time-sensitive.

Ovative Experts: What Search Agents Mean for Your Brand

Search agents are genuinely new behavior, but don’t let that distract from what matters most. Pressure-test your feeds, website, and content to make sure they’re ready to be acted on by an agent.

Agent interactions will likely be limited in volume given their niche use cases, but the brands that win will be both well-optimized and machine-ready.

I/O Takeaway #3: Google is Taking Over the Commerce Transaction Layer

Google announced several enhancements powering the next generation of Agentic Commerce. The most significant: the Universal Cart, a unified, intelligent shopping cart that lets you shop as you browse Search, chat with Gemini, watch YouTube, or check Gmail.

Once an item is in your cart, Google’s shopping graph and agentic capabilities take over, surfacing the best deals, alerting you when items are back in stock, and initiating transactions automatically when prices hit a set threshold. The cart also flags compatibility issues in real time (think: ink cartridges that don’t match the printer already in your cart).

Other advancements include:

• UCP expanding to new countries (Canada, Australia, UK), new surfaces (YouTube, Gmail), and new industries (hotel booking, local food delivery)
• Agentic Payments Protocol (AP2) scaling across more Google products, with stronger safeguards and a digital paper trail to build consumer trust in agentic transactions

Ovative Experts: The Window to Get Ready Is Now, and It’s Closing Fast

Google isn’t just where purchase journeys begin anymore. It’s positioning itself to own the transaction layer entirely. The $144B eMarketer forecast for agentic commerce by 2029 is only 2.5 years away, and Google is building the infrastructure to capture it.

Ready your feeds, site, and measurement now, and opt into UCP if you haven’t already.

I/O Takeaway #4: Search Experience Upgrades Are on the Way

As AI embeds deeper into the discovery layer, the search experience is evolving fast. While others lament the decline of the traditional results page—a trend that’s been underway for over a decade—Google is building experiences that add genuine value and, in our view, further separate Google Search from platforms like ChatGPT.

The headline feature: AI-generated “mini apps” built on Google’s search infrastructure that can be updated and shared. Ask AI Mode to plan a weekend getaway, and instead of a text list, you get an interactive app with hotel reservations, dinner plans, and activities all in one place.

Other notable announcements:

• Biggest Search box upgrade in 25 years: now accepts text, images, files, video, and Chrome tabs, with AI-powered intent suggestions that go well beyond autocomplete
• On-the-fly custom experiences: Google uses generative AI to build interactive, visual responses directly in AI Overview and AI Mode when the query calls for it

Ovative Experts: Better Experiences, Same Playbook

These upgrades signal where Google is placing its bets: making Search the place users stay. As experiences become more visual and interactive, the brands that win will have the most structured, crawlable, and contextually rich content. Invest in content that AI can both access and reason on.

Post-Google I/O: Taking the Next Step

Google’s announcements signal they’re taking competitive pressure seriously, betting on their established infrastructure and scale to pull ahead. It’s worth remembering how much longer Google has been at this. If Google Search were a person, it would be 27 years old, while ChatGPT and Claude are barely out of their terrible twos.

Search is expanding, not being replaced. The brands that win will nail the fundamentals while adapting early. We highlight where to focus your attention in this article.

At Ovative, we’re benchmarking AI platform share, testing new placements, and helping brands build for what’s next. Our AI Activation Audits give you a clear view of where you stand across discovery, site configuration, and media performance. Contact us to get started.