Google's AI Mode now lets you link and interact with select apps

9:00 AM · July 16, 2026

Google announced that AI Mode, the conversational search experience built into Google Search, now allows users to link and interact with select apps directly within the conversation, according to TechCrunch. At launch, the integration supports Instacart, Canva, and YouTube, with Google saying it plans to expand to additional partners over time. The feature is meant to move AI Mode beyond answering questions and into completing tasks, letting a user, for example, start a grocery order through Instacart or pull up a design in Canva without leaving the search conversation. The expansion is a direct response to competitive pressure from ChatGPT and Claude, both of which already offer their own app integrations that let users act on information rather than only read about it. By linking to frequently used consumer apps for shopping, design, and entertainment, Google is betting that AI Mode's usefulness, and the amount of time people spend inside it, depends on how many real world tasks it can complete rather than how well it can answer a query on its own. The rollout adds another front to the increasingly crowded competition among major AI assistants over which one becomes the default starting point for everyday tasks.