AI Mode
AI Mode is a conversational mode of Google Search that answers a question with an AI-written response, accepts follow-up questions and links to the web pages that support the answer.
AI Mode is Google Search in conversation form. After testing it in Search Labs, Google began rolling it out to everyone in the US on 20 May 2025. Instead of a page of results, the user gets a written answer with supporting links and can keep asking follow-up questions.
Like AI Overviews, AI Mode may use query fan-out, issuing many related searches across subtopics before writing the answer. Google notes that AI Mode and AI Overviews can use different models and techniques, so the same question can produce different answers and different links in each.
Why it matters now: AI Mode moves more of the search journey into Google’s answer, so a page’s chance of being seen depends on being one of the links it cites.
Practical note: there is no separate optimisation. Eligibility is the same as for AI Overviews: indexed and eligible for a snippet. In Search Console, AI Mode clicks and impressions sit in the Web search type, and each follow-up question is counted as a new query.