Believe it or not, there was a time when searching the web for images was not possible. Twenty-five years ago, Google launched image search, and it’s celebrating by looking back at its biggest visual milestones and refreshing the experience for today’s searchers. The celebration also includes expanded AI because that’s just how Google rolls in 2026.
Google claims the impetus for image search a quarter-century ago was the green Versace dress Jennifer Lopez wore to the 2000 Grammy Awards. If you were alive at the time, you probably remember the one. Google engineers understood that people searching for the dress didn’t want to read about it—they just wanted to see it. The company got to work building image search, launching the first version in July 2001. Twenty-five years later, it’s easy to take for granted that you can search for Lopez’s green dress or whatever else strikes your fancy.
Currently, going to the Google image search site shows a plain search bar for finding images. It’s a refreshingly minimalist interface for the modern web. Even Google’s search homepage has a smattering of AI buttons and drop-down menus. That will change when the new Google Images rolls out.
Soon, Google Image search will feature a gallery of images from across the web before you’ve even searched for anything. Google says this gallery will be updated continuously based on your interests. Your “interests” in this context means your web and search history on Google. So the things you look up and interact with online will inform what content Google suggests in this new interface.
The new Google image search page.
Credit: Google
The new Google image search page.
Credit: Google
Google is also using this update as an opportunity to resurface Collections, a feature of image search you probably don’t use. As you browse Google’s suggested images and search for more, you can add items to your Collections. These will appear in a menu at the top of the main gallery for easy access.
The last change is not so much image search—it’s kind of the opposite. If the sheer volume of existing images on the Internet isn’t doing it for you, Google is making it easier to generate new images with AI. Google’s impressive Nano Banana image model has long been available in Gemini, and it expanded to AI Mode a few months back. Now, it’s coming to AI Overviews.
AI Overview Image Generation
If you want more AI images in your search results, just ask for one in your query. Google’s AI will generate and place it in the AI Overview that occupies an increasingly expansive portion of the results page. The image will naturally push the organic search results even farther down the page.
Both the refreshed Google Images page and image generation in AI Overviews will roll out over the coming weeks. They will both be limited to accounts set to English at first.
