AI Mode — what is Google's AI search mode?
What is AI Mode?
AI Mode is a separate mode of Google Search in which an AI model answers the query instead of a list of ten links. The answer takes the form of a conversation: you can follow up, narrow the question or change direction, and the model shows its sources as links next to the answer. Google announced AI Mode in March 2025 as a Search Labs experiment and opened it to all users in the United States in May 2025.
How does AI Mode differ from AI Overviews?
AI Overviews are an AI summary shown above the regular search results: the classic list of links is still on the page, just lower down. AI Mode is a separate search tab in which the model writes the whole answer and there are no classic results at all. In AI Overviews a page can be cited or still earn a click from the list below; in AI Mode the only thing that counts is whether the model draws on it.
How does AI Mode build an answer?
Google describes a technique it calls query fan-out: the model splits the question into many smaller queries, runs them in parallel and assembles the answer from the results. For a site owner this means a page can end up in an answer not because it answers the user's whole question, but because it answers one of those sub-queries.
What does AI Mode mean for SEO?
- An answer under the heading. A model can more easily quote a passage in which the question in the heading is answered in the first or second sentence.
- Coverage of sub-queries. A service page that also answers the side questions (price, timing, differences between options) gives the model more to work with.
- The company as an entity. Structured data and a consistent description of the company in external sources help the model recognize who stands behind the content.
- SEO foundations. AI Mode draws on Google's index, so a page that Google does not index, or rates low, has little chance of reaching an answer.
Whether the model cites a particular page is decided by the model, not by the site owner or an agency. Work on AI Mode is part of GEO: it removes the obstacles that keep a page from having any chance of appearing in an answer.
We check a site's readiness for AI search as part of our free SEO audit.