Google continues to add functionality to AI Mode. The latest update lets users ask the AI engine about the availability of nearby products, including what’s currently in stock. This brings a longstanding functional aspiration for Google together with its latest AI-focused and buzzy products.
Before going into the new tool and what it means, let’s back up to define a few things. First, AI Mode lets users carry on conversational dialogues to find things, including multi-part queries and follow-up questions that keep a memory of the entire discussion – and of past discussions if you’re signed in.
Expanding on the “longstanding functional aspiration” noted above, the ability to process real-time inventory data has been a work in progress at Google for a few decades. It’s challenging because of the fragmented state of inventory systems across retailers, especially in the already-fragmented SMB realm.
Google has taken several approaches over the years to gain access to all that data, including tie-ins with POS systems, as well as partnerships with companies such as NearbyNow, Krillion and eBay’s Milo. The quality and reliability of the data has always been uneven, so this remains an unsolved problem.
The Old-Fashioned Way
After all that, it turns out that one of the most reliable methods for validating real-time in-store inventory is the old-fashioned way – to simply call and ask. So Google decided to marry that old-fashioned way with a new-fashioned technology: agentic AI. At that intersection, AI calls the business for you.
That brings us back to Google’s latest. In AI Mode, users can ask where they can get a specific product nearby. Google will call businesses within driving distance of the user and inquire about availability on their behalf. It will then return with answers about where to get the product and what’s in stock.
The way this works from a UX perspective is that users will ask AI Mode to find a product nearby – often as part of a typical conversational dialogue to find out more about a given product. AI Mode will then ask the user some qualifying questions before calling several businesses to get questions answered.
The outcome of that workflow is a summary that Google sends the user with variables like pricing and availability. Moreover, this could offer a mental bridge that gets everyday folks to better understand and appreciate AI. We’re not there yet, but things like this could make AI’s value proposition more tangible.
The Right Time
To be fair, this isn’t totally new. It builds from the early 2025 launch of Google’s “Ask for me” feature that offers to call businesses to ask basic questions about things like opening hours or products carried. That means Google has been able to test and refine this functionality before folding it into AI Mode.
But the latest integration into AI Mode is perhaps where this functionality is most natural. While doing product research, a natural extension is to simply ask about nearby availability. And users of AI Mode are a self-selected, AI-savvy population subset that’s likely receptive to automated calls to businesses.
What happens on the other end of the phone call is another story. One place this functionality could experience confusion or growing pains is busy SMBs picking up the phone to hear a robot asking them questions. Or if those businesses themselves have an IVR system, then it’s robots talking to robots.
Beyond “Ask for Me,” Google’s past efforts to call local businesses included the now-defunct Duplex. Though it didn’t survive, it bought Google an education in calling SMBs. Now it sees opportunity to revive the concept. Aligned with all its orbiting efforts and capabilities in AI, it could be the right time to do that.
Header image credit: Miryam León on Unsplash
