When searching, if Google doesn't detect my query as a potential Image search, it's always been convenient to just click 'Images' on the top and get your current query in image form.

This used to work for other services - News in particular being one I used frequently - until the past few weeks in which they broke this 'transfer your search' functionality.

This appears to be the endgame. I don't know if this dropdown will preserve search terms when switching to Images, but even if it does, the additional UI fiddling is going to be a big net loss for my Google workflow.