The search giant rolled out AI Mode in the U.S. in May, launching primarily as a text-based tool that could answer questions using natural language. Now, if users are looking for inspiration or shopping help, AI Mode can also generate results in the form of images.
Google has been racing to find ways to integrate generative AI into its search engine since OpenAI rocked the tech sector with the launch of its chatbot ChatGPT in late 2022. As its AI rivals have changed how users can seek information online, Google has had to keep up.
The company’s updated visual results will provide users with a whole new set of use cases for AI Mode, especially since some queries aren’t suited for text-based answers, said Robby Stein, vice president of product management at Google Search.
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“Sometimes what you’re looking for really just can’t be articulated with text,” Stein told reporters during a briefing. “If you ask about shopping for shoes, it’ll describe shoes when really people want visual inspiration, they want the ability to see what the model might be seeing.”
If users are looking for decor inspiration with AI Mode, for instance, they can enter a prompt like, “Show me a maximalist inspo for my bedroom,” and get a series of images in response. Users can further refine their results with follow ups, like asking to see more options with “bolder prints and dark tones,” Stein said.
AI Mode can also generate visual results for shopping.
Users can search “Barrel jeans that aren’t too baggy,” for example, and see a range of shoppable options. Each image in AI Mode has a link, so users can click out to the retailer’s site to make a purchase if they choose, Google said.
The company said AI Mode’s visual results combine capabilities from its AI model Gemini 2.5, Google Search, Lens and Image search.
“This is really, we think, a breakthrough in what’s possible,” Stein said.
Daniel Rausch, vice president of Alexa and Echo, announces the Echo Studio and Echo Dot Max during an Amazon event showcasing new products in New York City, U.S., September 30, 2025.
Kylie Cooper | Reuters
Amazon on Tuesday unveiled four new smart speakers and voice-activated displays that are revamped with Alexa+, its personal assistant that’s powered by generative artificial intelligence.
The company debuted the Echo Dot Max, a revamped version of its compact smart speaker, which costs $99.99. Amazon also unveiled a new Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11, priced at $179.99 and $219.99, respectively.
There’s also a new version of the Echo Studio, a larger, higher-end model with a more powerful speaker, priced at $219.99.
All the devices are available for preorder on Tuesday, and users will get Alexa+ early access “out of the box,” Amazon said. The Echo Dot Max and Echo Studio ship Oct. 29, while the Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11 ship Nov. 12.
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The devices were launched at Amazon’s fall hardware bonanza, held in New York. They’re the first batch of revamped products under the leadership of Panos Panay, a former Microsoft hardware leader who joined Amazon in 2023.
It’s also the first set of Amazon hardware to integrate the company’s long-awaited Alexa+, which debuted in February and has slowly rolled out in early access for some users.
“These are the most powerful Echo devices we have ever created,” Panay said on stage at the event. “Custom silicon, advanced sensors, our best microphones and sound, noise cancellation, understanding the user, faster than anything we’ve ever delivered before. They’re also beautifully designed to fade into the background.”
Alongside a revamped look, Amazon added new AZ3 and AZ3 Pro chips for edge processing to the devices, which are faster, more powerful and have “AI built right in,” said Daniel Rausch, the head of Amazon’s Alexa and Echo businesses.
Panos Panay, head of Amazon’s Devices and Services team, introduces Echo during an Amazon product event in the Manhattan borough of New York City on September 30, 2025. Amazon announced its next generation of Kindle, Ring, Blink, Fire TV, and Echo devices.
Charly Triballeau | Afp | Getty Images
The devices also feature a so-called Omnisense platform that gives Alexa “better contextual awareness,” Rausch said. It allows the Echo Show to be able to recognize users and serve up personalized insights, like an analysis of how they slept last night or alert users if they left their front door unlocked after midnight.
Amazon faces growing pressure to update its hardware and software for the generative AI age following the success of rivals such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. Meta also has its Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which use its Llama large language model to answer spoken questions from the user.
Amazon is also looking beyond Alexa or Echo smart speakers for opportunities in device growth.
The company in July confirmed it’s acquiring AI wearables startup Bee, which makes a wristband that can record and transcribe conversations.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attends the “Winning the AI Race” Summit in Washington D.C., U.S., July 23, 2025.
Kent Nishimura | Reuters
Nvidia shares reached a fresh record on Tuesday, climbing almost 3% and lifting the chipmaker’s market cap past $4.5 trillion.
The stock is now up about 39% for the year, and continues to attract investors as Nvidia steps up its pace of deal-making, cementing its position at the center of the artificial intelligence boom.
OpenAI said last week that Nvidia would take an equity stake worth up to $100 billion in the AI startup, and would build hundreds of billions of dollars worth of data centers filled with Nvidia graphics processing units. OpenAI then announced five massive new data centers with Oracle that are expected to be filled with hundreds of thousands of GPUs. The whole “Stargate” project will cost $500 billion, the companies said.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says Nvidia’s products comprise about 70% of the spending on a new AI data center.
Analysts at Citi on Tuesday raised their price target on Nvidia from $200 to $210, citing an increased forecast for AI infrastructure spending after the OpenAI announcements.
“We believe OpenAI came to Nvidia asking for help as Nvidia has a very compelling product, and as the number of users and compute being consumed per user basis is growing,” Citi analyst Atif Malik wrote in the note.
OpenAI is far from alone, as Meta, Google and others are also dramatically ramping up their infrastructure spending.
CoreWeave, a cloud provider that includes Nvidia as a large shareholder, said Tuesday it had reached a deal to supply Meta with $14.2 billion in AI infrastructure services.
Nvidia’s stock is outperforming all of its megacap peers so far this year except for chipmaker Broadcom, which is up about 40%, similarly boosted by OpenAI.
Daniel Ek, founder and chief executive officer of Spotify, attends the Cannes Lions 2016 on June 22, 2016 in Cannes, France.
Antoine Antoniol | Getty Images
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek will step down from his position and move to the role of executive chairman, the company said Tuesday.
Spotify shares dipped around 4% following the announcement.
Ek, who co-founded the streaming platform in 2006, will be replaced by current co-presidents and longtime executives Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström as co-CEOs, the company said in a release. The transition will happen Jan. 1, 2026.
“Over the last few years, I’ve turned over a large part of the day-to-day management and strategic direction of Spotify to Alex and Gustav–who have shaped the company from our earliest days and are now more than ready to guide our next phase,” Ek said in a release. “This change simply matches titles to how we already operate.”
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Ek, who has been a member of the board since 2008, said his new role will focus on steering the company’s long-term strategy and providing support to its senior team.
“It’s been an honor of a lifetime for me to be able to lead Spotify for close to 20 years,” Ek said in an X post.