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Google AI Mode SEO: What It Changes and What to Do

Published 8 min read

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Cover graphic for the AI search guide "Google AI Mode SEO: What It Changes and What to Do" by Saad Raza SEO

Google AI Mode is a Google Search experience that answers complex questions with an AI-generated response and follow-up questions, drawing on many searches at once. For SEO it changes how your pages get seen, not what makes them eligible: Google says no special optimisation is required, so strong fundamentals, clear passages and accurate measurement matter most.

The click picture is already shifting. In a 2025 analysis, Pew Research Center found that Google users clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, compared with 15% of visits when there was no AI summary.

That Pew finding concerns AI summaries in general, not AI Mode specifically, so I would not apply the numbers to AI Mode directly. But it points the same way as my own caution: when an answer is written for the searcher, fewer people may need to leave the results page, and the ones who do are choosing differently. This article explains what AI Mode is, how it differs from AI Overviews, what Google says about appearing in it, and the priorities I would set. It builds on my broader guide to generative engine optimisation.

What AI Mode is

Google’s help page describes AI Mode as its most powerful AI search experience, where you can ask anything, get an AI-powered response and go deeper with follow-up questions and helpful links to the web. The same page says AI Mode uses a technique called query fan-out, which breaks a question into subtopics and searches each one at the same time before pulling the results together. It also says that in some cases AI Mode will show a set of web links instead, if Google does not have high enough confidence in the quality or helpfulness of an AI response.

The practical reading is that a single typed question can trigger many searches behind the scenes. A person asking AI Mode to compare three project management tools for a ten person agency in Dubai is not asking one question. They are asking about features, pricing, integrations, reviews and fit, and the system goes looking for each piece.

How AI Mode differs from AI Overviews

Google’s help page says AI Mode expands what AI Overviews can do with more advanced reasoning and ways of interacting. Google’s Search Central documentation describes AI Overviews as helping people get to the gist of a complicated topic quickly, and AI Mode as suited to queries that need further exploration, reasoning or complex comparisons.

Feature AI Overviews AI Mode
Where it appears As a summary within the standard results page As a dedicated AI Search experience
Typical job Give the gist of a topic quickly Handle exploratory, multi-part or comparison questions
Interaction A starting point for exploring Conversational, with follow-up questions
Query fan-out May use it, per Google May use it, per Google
Extra SEO requirements None, per Google None, per Google

For the AI Overviews side of the same question, I cover practical formatting in my guide to optimising content for AI Overviews. Most of the work overlaps, so you do not need two content strategies.

What Google says about appearing in AI Mode

The most important source is Google’s own Search Central page on AI features and your website. Three points from it shape how I advise.

  1. No extra requirements. The page says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimisations necessary. A page needs to meet the normal technical requirements for Search and be eligible to be shown with a snippet.
  2. Fundamentals still apply. It says existing SEO best practices remain worthwhile, including crawl access, internal links, good page experience, textual content, quality multimedia and accurate structured data.
  3. No new files or markup. No new machine readable file or special schema is needed to appear in these features.

This matters because the market is full of offers to “optimise for AI Mode” with extra files or secret tags. Google’s documentation says none are needed. If someone sells you a special file for AI Mode, ask them to show where Google documents it. For a related question about a different proposal, see my explainer on llms.txt.

What query fan-out should change in your content

Google confirms that AI Mode may issue multiple related searches across subtopics. I do not know, and Google does not say, exactly how many searches run or how they are chosen. But the general implication is documented and sensible: a page that covers a topic with depth across its likely subtopics has more chances to match one of those searches than a page that only answers the headline question.

My rule is to map the follow-ups. For a main query such as “best CRM for a small agency”, list the questions a careful buyer would ask next: pricing, onboarding time, integrations, data export, support, alternatives. Then check whether your site answers each one, on a page of its own where the topic is big enough, or in a clearly headed section where it is not.

Six priorities I would set for AI Mode

  1. Be crawlable and indexable. If Googlebot cannot fetch and index a page, it cannot be a source. Check robots.txt, noindex tags, canonical tags and rendering. My robots.txt guide is the place to start.
  2. Make snippets possible. Google says pages need to be eligible to be shown with a snippet, so do not apply snippet restricting directives to pages you want surfaced unless you mean to.
  3. Write extractable passages. Start sections with a direct answer. A paragraph that makes sense by itself is easier for any AI system to use accurately.
  4. Cover the follow-up questions. Build topic depth, not just one page per keyword.
  5. Show real expertise. Name the author, show their experience and cite primary sources. Fabricated or generic content is the easiest thing for a system built on quality signals to pass over.
  6. Keep structured data accurate. Google lists accurate structured data among the fundamentals. Mark up what is actually visible on the page, and do not add claims that the page does not make.

When I rebuilt saadrazaseo.com in October 2026, these were the checks I ran: one connected schema graph covering Person, ProfessionalService, Service, BlogPosting and FAQPage, FAQ sections on pages where real questions exist, and author information on every article. I did not add anything described as “for AI Mode”, because Google’s documentation says it is not required. I also cannot claim that any of it guarantees a place in AI answers.

Measuring AI Mode in Search Console

Measurement is the least settled part, so check the current state in your own account. Google’s AI features page says traffic from AI features is included in the overall Search Console performance totals, in the Performance report under the Web search type. That means AI Mode visits are not split out in the standard view, and you cannot assume that a change in clicks was caused by AI Mode.

Google’s Search Central blog has also published a post introducing Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console. I could not read the full text of that post when I checked, and I understand from secondary coverage that the reports were rolling out to a subset of sites first, so look in your own property to see whether you have access. Until you do, I use this approach:

  • Track impressions and clicks for informational and comparison queries separately from brand queries, because the effect of AI answers is likely to differ by intent. My guide to brand queries explains why that split matters.
  • Watch click through rate and impressions together. Rising impressions with falling clicks can mean you are shown but not chosen, or that the answer satisfies the question. Both are plausible, so I treat it as a prompt to investigate rather than a conclusion.
  • Run manual prompt checks in AI Mode for your key topics and record whether you are linked. Use the sampling approach from my guide to tracking brand visibility in AI assistants.
  • Do not expect your web analytics to label these visits, as far as I can tell. For the other AI assistants, my guide to measuring AI referral traffic in GA4 shows what can and cannot be separated.
  • Measure business outcomes, such as enquiries and sales calls, not just sessions. A smaller number of better informed visitors can be worth more.

The wider pattern, where users get answers without clicking, is explained in my post on zero-click search. The lesson is to value visibility and brand recall alongside traffic, while still protecting the pages that earn enquiries.

What I would not do

  • Do not rewrite your whole site for a feature whose reporting is still developing. Fix access and the highest value pages first.
  • Do not chase prompts. Query fan-out means the searches are generated, not typed by users, so you cannot see or target them directly.
  • Do not publish thin pages at scale to cover subtopics. Depth, not volume, is the point.
  • Do not assume AI Mode behaves like AI Overviews on every query. Test both.

If you want your pages checked against Google’s documented requirements, a technical SEO review covers crawlability, indexing, rendering and structured data in one pass.

Questions about Google AI Mode and SEO

Do I need special markup to appear in Google AI Mode?

No. Google’s Search Central documentation says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special optimisations are necessary. Pages need to be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet.

Is AI Mode the same as AI Overviews?

No. Google describes AI Overviews as a way to get the gist of a topic quickly, while AI Mode handles queries needing more exploration, reasoning or comparison, with follow-up questions. Google says AI Mode expands what AI Overviews can do.

Can I see AI Mode traffic in Search Console?

Google says traffic from AI features is counted in the overall Performance report under the Web search type. Google has also introduced Generative AI performance reports, which may be available on a subset of sites, so check your own property for them.

Will AI Mode reduce my organic traffic?

I cannot say for your site, and nobody can until they measure it. Compare query groups by intent over time, and use outcomes such as leads as the main yardstick rather than sessions alone.

If you would like an independent view of how your pages fare against Google’s documented requirements and where AI answers might bypass you, I offer a free audit. Contact me and I will send back a short, prioritised list.

More AI search guides: start with the generative engine optimization guide, then go deeper: