What is Google AI Mode?

Google AI Mode is a conversational search mode in Google Search that answers complex questions with a detailed AI response and links to the web. A custom Gemini model breaks each question into many searches through query fan-out, and people can keep asking follow-up questions in the same conversation.

Why Google AI Mode matters for brands

Google AI Mode now reaches a mass audience. In May 2026, Google said that, one year after its debut, AI Mode had "surpassed one billion monthly users, with queries more than doubling every quarter since launch."

The questions asked there are also different from classic searches. "Queries in AI Mode are three-times longer than traditional searches," Sundar Pichai said in February 2026, adding that a significant portion of AI Mode queries now lead to a follow-up question.

Long questions carry the details that decide a purchase: budget, team size, location, tools already in use. AI Mode answers them with a written response that can recommend products and name brands. For a brand, being included in that answer, or left out of it, happens before any click.

How Google AI Mode works

Google describes AI Mode as its "most powerful AI search." Each answer goes through roughly five steps:

Plan. A custom Gemini model reads the question and, in Google's words, uses "a multistep approach to make a plan, conduct searches to find information and adjust the plan based on what it finds."
Fan out. AI Mode uses query fan-out, "breaking down your question into subtopics and issuing a multitude of queries simultaneously on your behalf."
Retrieve. It draws on Google's Search index and on fresh sources such as the Knowledge Graph and shopping data for billions of products.
Answer with links. It writes one response with links to supporting pages. When Google is not confident an AI response will be helpful, it shows web results instead.
Continue the conversation. Follow-up questions keep the context of earlier turns, which makes AI Mode a form of conversational search.

AI Mode can also act. It finds restaurant reservations across booking platforms, and Google is adding checkout from eligible retailers, a step toward agentic commerce.

Example: a buyer's question in AI Mode

A studio manager asks AI Mode:

Which project management tool suits a 6-person design agency that bills clients by the hour and already uses Slack?

With query fan-out, AI Mode runs more than that one search. It may add sub-searches such as "project management software with time tracking", "project management Slack integration" and "project management pricing per user" (illustrative), then write a comparison of a few tools with links to reviews and vendor pages.

The manager follows up: "Which of those has client invoicing built in?" AI Mode keeps the earlier context, six people, hourly billing, Slack, and narrows the list. A tool missing from the first answer now has to earn its way into the second, against the brands already named.

Google AI Mode vs AI Overviews

	AI Mode	AI Overviews
How people get there	They choose AI Mode, or ask a follow-up from an AI Overview	Google shows it on some results pages
Answer	Long, built for comparisons and reasoning	A short summary at the top of the results
Conversation	Yes, with follow-up questions	Hands follow-ups over to AI Mode
Tracked by Hawkscan	Yes	No

Google notes that the two "may use different models and techniques, so the set of responses and links they show will vary." A brand cited in one is not guaranteed a place in the other. Read more in Google AI Overviews.

How to track and improve your visibility in AI Mode

Rank for the sub-questions. AI Mode is "rooted in our core quality and ranking systems," so the pages it retrieves are pages that rank for its fan-out searches, on your site or on review and comparison sites.
Keep business data current. Google lists up-to-date Merchant Center and Business Profile information among its best practices for AI features.
Check Search Console. Visits from AI Mode are included in the Performance report under the "Web" search type. Search Console does not tell you which brands an answer named.
Read the answers themselves. Hawkscan runs your tracked prompts in Google AI Mode every day, next to ChatGPT, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot, and shows the full answers, the brands they name and the pages they cite.

Common questions

Is Google AI Mode free to use?

Yes, for searchers. Google rolled AI Mode out to everyone in the U.S. in May 2025, with "no Labs sign-up required," and Alphabet said AI Mode reached 40 languages in the third quarter of 2025. Some newer capabilities, such as information agents, launch first for paying Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers.

Does blocking Google-Extended remove a site from AI Mode?

No. AI Mode is part of Google Search, where robots.txt rules for Googlebot are the control. Google-Extended only governs training of Gemini models and grounding in the Gemini apps and Vertex AI, and Google states that it "does not impact a site's inclusion in Google Search."

Is Google AI Mode the same as Gemini?

No, although both run on Gemini models. AI Mode lives inside Google Search and is grounded in the Search index, with links to web pages. Gemini is Google's separate assistant app. The same prompt can get different answers and sources in each, so track them separately.