Google appears to be testing the removal of the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button from its main search bar, according to a test spotted by Khushal Bherwani on X and independently replicable by Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz.

For some users, the button — a fixture of Google's homepage since the company's earliest days — disappears entirely once they start typing a query. In other observed variants, the button remains but sits alongside AI-related buttons that Google has been surfacing next to the search box.

To be clear on what is confirmed versus what is speculation: Google has made no official statement about removing the feature. Everything here rests on user-reported screenshots and a replicable live test, which places this firmly in the category of tool-signal-style evidence — visible in the wild, unexplained by the search engine itself. Google routinely runs interface experiments on small percentages of its user base, and many such tests never ship broadly.

What the test looks like

The experiment manifests in two distinct ways. In the first variant, users who click into the search bar and begin typing see no "I'm Feeling Lucky" button at all — the space where it normally appears is simply empty. In the second, the button survives the typing interaction.

A separate configuration, which Schwartz notes is not new, shows AI buttons positioned next to the search box when it is closed. That layout has appeared previously in Google's ongoing AI Mode rollouts.

A pattern of AI replacing legacy UI

This is not the first time the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button has found itself in Google's crosshairs. In May 2025, Google tested replacing it with an AI Mode button directly in the search bar — a far more aggressive swap than the current experiment, which simply removes the button rather than substituting a new one.

Taken together, the two tests suggest Google is evaluating what belongs in its most valuable piece of interface real estate: the search box itself. The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, which sends users straight to the first organic result and bypasses the results page entirely, has diminishing strategic value in an era when Google wants users to stay on Google — or in an AI-generated answer layer — rather than跳 out to a single destination site.

Who this affects

For searchers, the practical impact is minimal; anecdotal evidence has long suggested the button's usage was a tiny fraction of queries. For publishers and site owners, the removal would be mostly symbolic — but the symbol matters. "I'm Feeling Lucky" was one of the last direct-to-site entry points Google offered from its homepage, skipping the results page and its ads entirely. Its disappearance, even from a small test cohort, tracks with the broader trajectory of Google's interface: fewer pathways straight to publisher content, more pathways through Google-controlled surfaces, whether that is the traditional results page, AI Overviews, or the newer AI Mode.

There is no ranking impact here. This is a UI experiment, not a core update, not a spam policy change, and not a Google Business Profile feature. Sites will not see traffic shift because of the button itself. The relevance is directional: it signals where Google is placing its bets on the search experience.

What to watch next

Monitor whether this test expands beyond the initial cohort, whether Google replaces the button with an AI Mode shortcut in future variants as it did in May 2025, and whether the company says anything official about the feature's future. A full rollout — or a formal retirement announcement — would mark the end of one of the longest-running elements in Google's interface history.