Ask HN: How is Google AI Mode so much faster than ChatGPT

After two years of ChatGPT use, over the past month or so, I've found myself using Google Search instead.

The "AI Overview" is often sufficient and is served very quickly. (Sometimes nearly instant. I assume Google is caching responses for common searches).

"Deep Mode" is just one click away. And the responses are much, much faster. A question that might take 10 or 15 seconds in ChatGPT (with the default GPT5) takes <1 second to first token with Google. And then remaining tokens stream in at a noticeably faster rate.

Is Google just throwing more hardware than OpenAI?

Playing other tricks to look faster? (E.g., use a smaller, faster, non-reasoning model to serve the first part of the response while a slower, reasoning model works on more detailed part of the later response).

Web search tool calls are much faster too, presumably powered by Google's 30 years of web search.