For roughly 25 years, the Google homepage has been the most consistent thing on the internet. Two buttons. One search bar. A logo. That’s it. A user could reformat a hard drive, switch browsers, or change countries — and google.com looked exactly the same. That era appears to be ending.
Google is reportedly testing a homepage variant for signed-out users that swaps the familiar “Google Search” button for three AI-powered shortcuts: Create images, Ask about files, and Brainstorm. AI Mode now sits embedded inside the search field itself. The test has appeared across Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Perplexity’s Comet browser, which suggests a server-side change rather than a browser-specific quirk.
What Actually Changed
The classic Google homepage has quietly been rewritten, and the edits are bigger than they look.
- The “Google Search” button is replaced by three shortcuts: Create images, Ask about files, and Brainstorm.
- AI Mode appears directly inside the search box — not tucked away in Labs or a separate tab.
- Ask about files lets users attach a document via a plus button and query it, with no sign-in required.
- Brainstorm opens a prompt interface that also works while signed out.
- Create images appears on the homepage but reportedly still requires a Google Account to actually generate anything.
- “I’m Feeling Lucky” remains — like a vestigial organ nobody has the heart to remove.
Google has not confirmed a full rollout. The scope may depend on account status, session, or location. Treat this as an experiment with serious directional intent.
Gizmodo described Google Search “as you know it” as effectively over — even as traditional blue links still exist somewhere beneath the AI layer.
This isn’t a sudden pivot. AI Overviews, AI Mode experiments, and expanded AI-powered search features have been building across Google’s infrastructure for two years. The homepage is simply the most visible real estate the company owns. It’s like Netflix quietly replacing “Browse” with “Let Us Pick For You” — the old option still exists, but the nudge is unmistakable.
For SEO professionals and publishers, a homepage that normalizes AI actions over link-browsing accelerates the erosion of traditional click-through traffic. That shift has consequences that extend well beyond the average search session, part of a broader pattern of scrutiny around Google from handling sensitive data across expanding digital services.
What This Means for You
The change sounds cosmetic — it isn’t.
If this test expands, the Google homepage becomes a multimodal AI launchpad. Classic web search doesn’t vanish — it just stops being the default action.
The most visited page on the internet would no longer assume you want to search. It would assume you want to generate.
