Google is updating AI Mode on desktop this week with the ability to process images, so you can ask it detailed questions about the pictures like you already can on mobile. In the coming weeks, the company is also adding support for PDF uploads on desktop, which could help you digest lengthy course or work materials. You can ask AI Mode to summarize the documents for you and ask follow-up questions that it will then answer by cross-referencing the materials you uploaded with information available on the web. Google says AI Mode's responses will also include links to its references that you can visit in order to dig deeper. AI Mode will support additional file types for upload, including ones straight from your Google Drive, in the coming months as well.
In addition to PDF upload support, Google is also rolling out a new Canvas feature that you can access if you're enrolled in the AI Mode Labs experiment in the US. You can use Canvas to consolidate all relevant information about a specific topic or for a specific purpose in a side panel that updates as you ask AI Mode more follow-up questions. If you're traveling, for instance, you can ask AI Mode to make you an itinerary and click the Create Canvas button. You'll be able to keep refining the itinerary with more questions, and you can always leave it alone for a while and come back to it later.
AI Mode's Search Live is also getting video input on mobile this week, a feature Google announced at I/O 2025, after voice input arrived in June. To be able to access video input, you'll have to open Lens in the Google app and tap the Live icon before asking questions on what the camera sees. When Google revealed the feature during its annual developers' event, it said you could point the camera at a math problem, for example, and ask Search to help you solve it or to explain a concept you're having trouble understanding.
Finally, with Lens in Chrome, you'll be able to ask AI Mode what's on your desktop screen. The company will roll out an "Ask Google about this page" dropdown option in the address bar "soon." When you click on it, AI Mode will create an overview with key information on what's being shown on your screen, whether it's a web page or a PDF.
Update, July 29 2025, 12:29PM ET: This story has been updated, as Google shared after the article was published that the image and PDF upload features will be available wherever AI Mode is available, not just in the US. That means those uploads will come to the US, India and the UK.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-is-bringing-image-and-pdf-uploads-to-ai-mode-160050646.html?src=rss
