Google unveils Gemini 3.5 Flash and a redesigned ‘intelligent Search box’

Google announced Gemini 3.5 Flash — designed to be Google’s most capable agentic and coding model to date — and an ‘intelligent Search box’ that supports longer queries as well as images, videos, and file uploads.

Google made these announcements at Google I/O 2026. And both features are live now for all users.

Gemini 3.5 Flash is now powering Google Search, AI Mode, and the Gemini app. And it’s available to all users — not just paid subscribers. Google’s DeepMind team called it the “strongest agentic and coding model yet.”

The Gemini 3.5 Flash-powered intelligent search box means users can now interact with Google Search the same way they’d interact with any other type of conversational AI.

What this means for marketers

The rollout of Gemini 3.5 Flash and the intelligent Search box are signals of what Google is building toward: a highly-personalized AI search experience that aims to deliver the most relevant and useful information to users.

The intelligent Search box doesn’t just accept longer inputs — it actively encourages them. The box expands as you type.

And multimodal queries route users directly to AI Mode. The new design nudges users toward more detailed, specific prompts that could lead to increasingly more experiences in AI Mode compared to traditional results.

For marketers, these updates mean content needs to answer the specific questions searchers are actually asking. And that visibility inside AI responses matter just as much if not more than organic rankings.

How to stay visible as the new Search box rolls out

SEO fundamentals like prioritizing crawlability, creating well-structured content, and building backlinks still matter, but you need to go beyond those if you want to show up in an increasingly AI-driven search landscape.

Optimizing for AI visibility starts with knowing where you stand.

Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit tracks citations, mentions, and visibility across AI platforms, showing you where your brand is appearing and where it isn’t. It’s the only way to establish a baseline and then measure improvement.

AI Optimization (AIO) helps you adjust your content so it’s more likely to be surfaced, cited, and recommended by AI systems — including the ones powering the new Search box.

Position Tracking and Organic Research continue to tell you how you rank in traditional results. But with the intelligent Search box routing more queries into AI Mode, you need both sides of the data to understand your total visibility.

Bottom line

Google is making search more conversational and personal. Your content needs to be built for both traditional rankings and AI citations.

Start tracking how your brand appears across all search surfaces — AI-powered and traditional. Semrush One bundles the tools to monitor, optimize, and compete across both.