AI Mode is a conversational search experience inside Google Search, where a Gemini-based model answers your question in a written response with links to its sources, and you can keep asking follow-up questions. Instead of a list of ten results, you get an answer you can question further, much like a chat assistant built into Google.
How AI Mode works
You reach AI Mode from its own tab in Google’s results, from a link beneath some AI Overviews, or directly in the Google app. When you ask a question, Google uses a technique it calls query fan-out: it breaks your question into many related sub-searches, runs them against its index and other data such as the Shopping Graph and business listings, and then has a large language model combine what it finds into one answer. Links to the pages it drew on appear alongside the text.
The difference from AI Overviews is one of scale. An AI Overview is a summary that sits on top of the normal results for some searches. AI Mode replaces the results page with a conversation, and handles longer, more complicated questions, such as “what is the cheapest way to heat a Victorian terrace with solid walls, and are there grants in England?”
Google launched AI Mode in the United States in 2025 and extended it to the UK later that year. At the time of writing (October 2026), it is available to UK users in English through Google Search and the Google app. Google has said clicks and impressions from AI Mode are counted in the Search Console Performance report alongside ordinary web results, without a separate filter.
Why it matters
For simple factual questions, AI Mode can answer without the searcher visiting any website, which adds to the trend towards zero-click searches. For complex or comparative questions, it builds its answer from several sources, and being one of those cited sources is a new kind of visibility. The visitors who do click through have often already compared options, so they arrive better informed.
Local and commercial searches still lead to businesses: AI Mode can show business details, reviews and maps when someone is looking for a supplier. The businesses mentioned are those Google understands clearly from their websites, Business Profiles and what others say about them.
Common mistakes
- Assuming nothing can be done. AI Mode draws on Google’s index, so ordinary SEO work, crawlable pages and clear content still decide whether you are a candidate source.
- Chasing tricks. Google has said no special markup or file is needed to appear in its AI features; good pages that are indexed and eligible for snippets qualify.
- Blocking Google-Extended to opt out. That setting governs Gemini model use, not Search. The controls Google offers for its AI features are its usual ones, such as nosnippet or noindex, and they also limit or remove your ordinary listings.
- Measuring with rank tracking alone. A page can lose positions in a classic sense yet be cited in AI answers, or the reverse.
How to act on it
List the questions your customers ask before they buy, including the follow-ups, and check what AI Mode says for a sample of them. Note which sources it cites and whether your business appears. Then make your pages the clearest answer: lead each section with a direct answer, use headings that match real questions, add the specifics only you know (UK prices, timescales, process), and keep your business details consistent across your site and Business Profile.
Track the effect through Search Console, GA4 and repeated manual checks rather than a single screenshot. Building a plan around this is what my AI search optimisation work covers, alongside generative engine optimisation for other AI tools.