Google AI Mode is a way of searching Google where you ask a question in your own words, get an AI-written answer with links to websites, and carry on with follow-up questions. Google announced it for UK users in a post dated 28 July 2025, as a tab on the results page and in the Google app for Android and iOS. For a business, what matters is that it works from Google’s normal search index: the pages it links to must be indexed and able to show with a snippet, and there’s no special markup to add.
What is Google AI Mode?
Google calls AI Mode its most powerful AI search experience. Its help page on AI Mode says it suits questions that would once have taken several searches, such as exploring a new idea or comparing options. You can ask by typing, by voice, with a photo or with a file such as a PDF. You can go straight to it at google.com/ai.
In the UK launch post, Google said early users were asking questions two or three times the length of traditional searches. In a June 2026 post on new controls for website owners, it said AI Mode had passed one billion monthly users.
How AI Mode differs from AI Overviews
An AI Overview is an AI-written snapshot shown within the normal results. Google’s guide to AI features for site owners says it only shows when Google’s systems decide it adds something, so it often doesn’t appear. AI Mode is a separate space you choose to enter, meant for questions that need more exploring, reasoning or comparing, and you can keep the conversation going. People can also move from an AI Overview into AI Mode to ask follow-ups.
Google says the two can use different models and techniques, so the same question can bring different answers and links in each.
How AI Mode builds an answer: query fan-out
AI Mode uses what Google calls query fan-out. It breaks your question into subtopics, runs many searches at once on your behalf, then brings the results together into one answer.
Google’s guide to optimising for its AI features, updated on 10 July 2026, gives an example. A search for “how to fix a lawn that’s full of weeds” might fan out into searches such as “best herbicides for lawns” and “how to prevent weeds in lawn”. A local question such as “is there an electrician in Leeds who can come out tonight?” has several parts in the same way, and each can become its own search.
The same guide says these features are rooted in Google’s core ranking and quality systems, which fetch pages from the search index before the answer is written.
Google also warns against writing a separate page for every way a question might be asked, fan-out searches included. Doing that mainly to sway rankings or AI answers breaks its scaled content abuse policy.
Where your website fits: the links in AI Mode
AI Mode answers come with links to the websites that support them. Google says fan-out can let it show a wider and more varied set of links than a classic search. In a 15 October 2026 update to AI Mode and AI Overviews, it announced more links inside the text of answers, shown higher up more often. Google will also test a section at the top of some answers for the one or two official sites where you can get a particular task done.
AI Mode doesn’t always write an answer. Google’s UK post says that when it doesn’t have high confidence in a response, you’ll see a set of web search results instead.
What Google says a page needs
Google’s answer is shorter than most of the advice about AI search. The rules are the same for AI Mode and AI Overviews, so this is also how to appear in AI Overviews.
Indexed and eligible for a snippet
To be shown as a supporting link, a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet, meeting Google’s normal technical requirements. Google’s newer guide adds one condition: your site must be included in the Search generative AI control in Search Console. That control reached every site on 31 August 2026 and is set to include by default, so it only matters if someone has switched it off. Meeting all of this still doesn’t guarantee a page will be shown, Google says.
No special schema or files
Google says you don’t need new machine-readable files, AI text files such as llms.txt, or special schema.org markup to appear in its AI features. Its guide also says there’s no need to break content into small chunks or rewrite it for AI.
Structured data still helps a page qualify for rich results, and Google asks that it match the visible text. The basics Google does list are familiar: allow crawling in robots.txt and in any CDN or hosting settings, keep key content in text, and keep your Business Profile up to date.
If you want less of your content shown
Snippet controls (nosnippet, data-nosnippet and max-snippet) and noindex limit what Google shows from a page. The Search generative AI control goes further and takes a whole site, or one Search Console property within it, out of AI Overviews, AI Mode and the AI features in Discover. Google says excluded sites get no traffic or impressions from those features, and that the choice isn’t used as a ranking signal for the rest of Search.
How AI Mode traffic shows in Search Console
AI Mode visits are already in your Search Console data, mixed in with the rest. Google’s help page on how clicks are counted says a click on a link in AI Mode counts as a click, impressions follow the standard rules, and position is worked out as on a normal results page. A follow-up question counts as a new search. Google’s AI features guide adds that all of it sits in the Performance report under the Web search type.
The clicks help page says an AI Overview takes one position, shared by every link inside it.
Since 31 August 2026, every site can also use the Generative AI performance report, though a site with too few AI impressions may see nothing yet. It shows how often your pages appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, device and date. For now it counts impressions, not clicks, and the help page gives no way to split AI Mode from AI Overviews. We found no Google page that says how Google Analytics labels AI Mode visits.
What it means for a local service business
Google’s guide says AI answers can include information about local businesses, and that a Google Business Profile can help your services show in AI answers as well as the usual results. We’d treat your profile and service pages as the facts AI Mode has to work with, so they should agree on hours, services and areas.
AI Mode can also do legwork for customers. Its help page on local availability and pricing says it can research home services such as electricians, find appointment slots and check prices.
When a business has little information online, Google may phone it on the customer’s behalf. That page lists the UK for restaurant bookings but names no countries for the rest, so whether it calls UK trades today is unclear. If Google does call, your Business Profile settings let you turn automated calls for customer bookings and enquiries on or off.
Three things to check this month
- Your Search Console setting and key pages. Under Settings, open Search generative AI and confirm your site is included, unless you chose otherwise. Then run your main service pages through URL Inspection to confirm they’re indexed and nobody has added a nosnippet tag.
- The Generative AI performance report. Note which pages appear and how their impressions move each month, and compare them with the clicks those pages get in the Performance report.
- The facts AI Mode can find about you. Check your Business Profile against your service pages and fix anything that doesn’t match. Then ask AI Mode a few of the longer questions your customers ask, and see which sites it links to. Answers can change with who is asking and when, so one check is a snapshot.
Questions
Is AI Mode available in the UK?
Yes. Google announced AI Mode for UK users in a post dated 28 July 2025, and its help page lists the United Kingdom among the countries where it’s available.
Do I need special markup to appear in AI Mode?
No. Google says there’s no special schema.org markup to add: a page has to be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet, and your site has to stay included in Search Console’s Search generative AI control, which is the default.
Can I see AI Mode visits in Search Console?
Partly. Clicks from AI Mode are counted in the Performance report under the Web search type, mixed with other Google traffic, and the Generative AI performance report shows impressions from AI Mode and AI Overviews together.
Can I keep my site out of AI Mode?
Yes. The Search generative AI control in Search Console takes a whole site out of AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover’s AI features, and Google says excluded sites get no traffic or impressions from them.
Beyond Google’s AI Mode
AI Mode is one of several AI tools people now ask. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot choose their sources in their own ways, and our Note on what AI search optimisation involves covers them. Our AI search visibility work includes a monthly panel of AI prompt checks. To see where you stand in Google, the map pack and AI answers, ask for a free visibility audit.
