Three buttons have appeared under Google's homepage search box, and not one of them runs a search. Google confirmed on August 10, 2026 that a subset of signed-out desktop visitors now sees "create images," "ask about files" and "brainstorm" below the box, tucked behind a plus-sign icon; clicking any of the three opens AI Mode directly and skips the query-and-blue-links flow. Robby Stein, Google's VP of Product for Search, confirmed the test on X the same day the sighting was first reported: "This is a small test on desktop to help people find new things they can do with Search... No impact to how the core search box works." The box is unchanged. What changed is what sits beside it. Multi-outlet reporting puts the test on Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Perplexity's Comet browser, signed-out visitors only: not signed-in accounts, not mobile. Google has published no start date, no traffic share and no expansion timeline.
Credibility: HIGH. A named Google VP confirmed the test on the record, in a public X post anyone can open, with a screenshot attached; five or more outlets (Search Engine Land, Futurism, TechSpot, Digital Trends, Android Headlines) reported the same sighting inside 48 hours. One bias to name: Google is the party describing the scope, and it has an obvious interest in "a small test" being the phrase everyone repeats.
Fact bullets:
- The three buttons, "create images," "ask about files" and "brainstorm," sit beneath the search box behind a plus-sign icon and route directly into AI Mode.
- Robby Stein (Google VP of Product, Search) confirmed the test on X on August 10, 2026: "This is a small test on desktop to help people find new things they can do with Search... No impact to how the core search box works."
- Multi-outlet reporting places the test across signed-out visitors on Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Perplexity's Comet browser, not signed-in accounts and not mobile.
- Google has disclosed no start date, traffic percentage, or expansion timeline for the test.
Sources:
Search Engine Land: "Google confirms testing new buttons on home page to drive users to AI-powered search features," Aug 12, 2026. https://searchengineland.com/google-confirms-testing-new-buttons-on-home-page-to-drive-users-to-ai-powered-search-features-484597
Corroborating coverage from Futurism, TechSpot, Digital Trends and Android Headlines, Aug 10-12, 2026.
Robby Stein (@rmstein), X post, Aug 10, 2026.
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For business decision-makers: Google is putting an entrance to AI Mode on the one page nobody has to be persuaded to open, and it is showing that entrance first to the visitors it knows least about. Signed-out means Google has no account history to personalise the answer with. Those are the people being handed the shortcut.
Read what the buttons actually offer. "Brainstorm" and "ask about files" are tasks, not searches, and a visitor who starts from a task is reading AI Mode's synthesis rather than a page of results. Whether your brand sits inside that synthesis is a separate question from where you rank. That makes two ways into AI Mode now, this one and AI Overviews.
"A small test" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and Google has not said how small. Nothing on the site needs changing this week. The baseline does need to exist before the number moves, because a traffic source you start measuring after it grows is one you can never size.
Recommended actions:
1. Add an "AI Mode" entry and referral segment to the client's GA4 traffic-source view this week, so a baseline exists before any wider rollout changes the numbers.
2. Ask the web team to confirm the client's top commercial pages carry a self-contained, quotable answer passage near the top of the page. A visitor who clicked "brainstorm" or "ask about files" lands inside AI Mode's synthesis, not on the page itself.
3. Write the browser scope into the next client debrief: Chrome, Edge, and Perplexity's own Comet browser. Google's AI Mode surfacing inside a competitor's browser is a distribution detail worth flagging, not yet a ranking signal.
Search Engine Land: "Google confirms testing new buttons on home page to drive users to AI-powered search features," Aug 12, 2026, https://searchengineland.com/google-confirms-testing-new-buttons-on-home-page-to-drive-users-to-ai-powered-search-features-484597
Robby Stein (@rmstein), X post, Aug 10, 2026 (cited via Search Engine Land)
Corroborating coverage: Futurism, TechSpot, Digital Trends, Android Headlines, Aug 10-12, 2026