Google’s AI Mode represents a total reimagining of Search, fundamentally changing how users interact with the world’s most popular search engine. More than a billion people already use AI overviews, which shows the massive adoption of artificial intelligence features within Google Search.
Unlike traditional search results, the new Artificial Intelligence Mode functions similarly to a chatbot, allowing users to ask complex, multi-part questions and receive detailed answers. This new feature is critical, as clickthrough rates from Google’s search results have declined by nearly 30% over the past year. Despite this challenge, Google maintains its dominant position with 136 billion monthly visits—34 times more than ChatGPT’s 4 billion. This bold move towards an AI search engine experience demonstrates Google’s strategy to disrupt traditional Search before competitors gain ground.
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What is AI Mode, and How is it Different from AI Overviews?
It marks Google’s latest advancement in search technology, offering a fundamentally different approach to information retrieval than its predecessor, AI Overviews. Whilst both features utilise artificial intelligence, they serve distinct purposes and operate in considerably different ways.
Google describes Artificial Intelligence Mode as its “most powerful AI search,” powered by a custom version of Gemini 2.5. Unlike traditional Search, this mode employs advanced reasoning, thinking and multimodal capabilities to help users tackle complex queries that previously might have required multiple separate searches.
AI Overviews vs AI Mode: Key differences
The distinctions between these two AI-powered features are substantial:
Format and Interaction: AI Overviews appear as static snapshots integrated within standard search results, providing quick summaries at the top of the page. In contrast, Artificial Intelligence Mode is a separate, chat-like interface that enables users to ask follow-up questions and enjoy a more conversational experience.
Technical Capabilities: Both features utilise Google’s Gemini models. However, Artificial Intelligence Mode employs more sophisticated technology. Furthermore, this Mode uses a technique called ‘query fan-out’, which simultaneously breaks down complex questions into subtopics and issues multiple related searches. This approach allows AI Mode to access a greater breadth and depth of information than traditional Google searches or AI Overviews.
Use Cases: AI Overviews excel at providing quick summaries for straightforward informational queries, currently serving about 1.5 billion people. Conversely, Artificial Intelligence Mode is designed specifically for complex, exploratory tasks that benefit from AI reasoning and the ability to refine queries through conversation.
Availability: Currently, AI Mode is more limited in availability than AI Overviews. While AI Overviews are widely accessible in supported regions, this mode was initially restricted to Labs testers before its broader US release in May 2024.
Why Google introduced the new Mode now?
Google’s introduction of Artificial Intelligence Mode appears strategically timed. As revealed by company statements, the decision directly responded to user demand—specifically from “power users” seeking AI responses for a broader range of searches.
Additionally, this mode represents Google’s answer to emerging competition from startups like OpenAI and Perplexity, which offer chatbot-style search experiences. Consequently, Google CEO Sundar Pichai described this development as entering “a new phase of the AI platform shift”.
The timing also coincides with reports showing declining clickthrough rates on traditional search results—approximately 35% lower for top-ranking pages since the introduction of AI features. Through this mode, Google aims to maintain its dominant position whilst adapting to changing user expectations and technological possibilities.
How does the new Artificial Intelligence Mode work under the hood?
Beneath Google’s sleek Artificial Intelligence Mode interface lies a sophisticated technical architecture that fundamentally changes how Search operates. Rather than simple keyword matching, AI Mode employs multiple advanced technologies working in concert to deliver comprehensive responses.
Query fan-out: Generating multiple sub-queries
The cornerstone of AI Mode is its unique “query fan-out” technique. Unlike traditional Search, which processes a single query, Artificial Intelligence Mode breaks complex questions into multiple subtopics and issues numerous searches simultaneously. For instance, when comparing sleep-tracking features across devices, the system generates distinct sub-queries about bright rings, smartwatches, and tracking mats. This parallel processing allows AI Mode to explore the web more thoroughly than conventional Search, retrieving hyper-relevant content that precisely matches user questions.
Reasoning chains and layered logic
AI Mode employs a custom version of Gemini 2.0 that uses multi-step reasoning to enhance factuality. When processing queries, the system follows a structured approach: making a plan, conducting searches to find information, and adjusting that plan based on what it discovers. This chain-of-thought prompting technique enables the model to pause momentarily whilst considering related prompts before synthesising what appears to be the optimal response.
Dense retrieval and passage-level selection
Rather than retrieving entire documents, AI Mode employs dense retrieval techniques that work at the passage level. This approach enables more precise content selection by encoding queries and documents using vector representations (embeddings). The system evaluates up to 1,500 pages simultaneously whilst maintaining coherent context. Each query aspect (brand, category, or features) receives dedicated embedding attention, allowing more accurate matching between user intent and relevant content.
Personalisation through user embeddings
AI Mode can tailor results to individual users through personalised embeddings. These are dense vector representations generated from a user’s behavioural signals—including past searches, click patterns and content interests. Soon, AI Mode will offer personalised suggestions based on previous searches, and users can choose to connect to other Google apps (starting with Gmail) to incorporate more personal context. This embedding-based approach influences everything from query interpretation to passage retrieval and response synthesis, creating a truly individualised search experience.
What does Artificial Intelligence mode mean for everyday users?
AI Mode transforms the search experience from a one-way query system for everyday users into an interactive, multi-dimensional tool to tackle complex questions. This latest development in Google’s AI search engine capabilities brings several tangible benefits to regular searchers.
Conversational search and follow-up questions
AI Mode enables users to ask complex, multi-part questions and continue the conversation with follow-up queries to explore topics more deeply. According to Google’s data, AI Mode queries are usually twice as long as traditional search queries, indicating that users embrace its capacity for handling detailed questions.
People mostly use AI Mode for exploratory and open-ended questions, alongside more complicated tasks like comparing products, exploring how-to guides, and planning trips. The conversational nature creates a more natural search experience, allowing users to refine their searches progressively without starting from scratch each time.
Multimodal responses: text, video, images
Beyond text, AI Mode understands and processes visual information through Gemini’s multimodal capabilities. Users can snap pictures or upload an image and ask questions about what they see, receiving comprehensive responses with links to learn more.
Moreover, the technology comprehends entire scenes, including the context of how items or objects relate to each other and their unique materials, colours, shapes, and arrangements. Through integration with Project Astra, users can point their cameras at objects in real time, turning Search into an interactive learning partner that explains complex concepts and suggests relevant resources on the spot.
Real-time data and shopping integration
Primarily, AI Mode powers a reimagined shopping experience built upon Google’s Shopping Graph, which contains over 50 billion product listings refreshed hourly. The system offers:
- Visual browsing with dynamic panels that update with relevant products as users refine their searches
- Virtual try-on technology for billions of apparel listings using just a single uploaded photo
- Price tracking with notifications and optional AI-powered checkout through Google Pay
Throughout this experience, users maintain control over final purchasing decisions while benefiting from AI assistance that handles the tedious parts of online shopping. AI Mode can generate custom, interactive charts for queries about sports statistics or financial data, analysing complex datasets tailored to user questions.
What does AI Mode mean for content creators and SEO?
AI Mode redefines the playing field for content creators and SEO professionals. With clicks from AI-generated results declining by up to 30% over the past year, this evolving paradigm demands fresh strategies for online visibility.
Why traditional SEO isn’t enough
Traditional SEO focused primarily on ranking positions and driving clicks. Nevertheless, AI Mode shifts the goal from merely ranking to being cited as a trustworthy source within AI-generated responses. Rankings alone no longer guarantee visibility—relevance has become the decisive factor determining whether content appears in AI summaries. Content that’s technically optimised but lacks clear structure or direct answers risks invisibility regardless of domain authority.
How to optimise for passage-level relevance
AI Mode retrieves content at the passage level rather than the page level. Therefore, content creators must:
- Structure content with clear, descriptive headings that directly address user questions
- Create semantically dense passages that align with multiple potential sub-queries
- Focus on semantic similarity and triple clarity, not just keyword density
- Engineer content to be relevant across the expanded query space that AI Mode explores through query fan-out
The importance of structured and citation-worthy content
John Mueller from Google suggests implementing structured data markup—such as Schema.org—to assist search engines in extracting essential information. Indeed, this structured data should align with the page’s visible text; for instance, a Q&A page should use Schema.org’s ‘FAQPage’ markup. Research reveals that product-related content currently dominates AI citations, making up 46% to 70% of all sources referenced.
Tracking visibility in a personalised search environment
Currently, AI Mode tracking remains limited. Google has confirmed AI Mode won’t be individually trackable within Google Search Console from main search results. Furthermore, personalisation through user embeddings means every user sees something different, even for identical queries. First and foremost, content creators must focus less on rankings and more on overall value, such as conversions and audience engagement, while maintaining comprehensive monitoring across different user profiles and scenarios.
Conclusion: AI Mode
Google’s AI Mode undeniably marks a watershed moment for search technology. Through its innovative query fan-out system and advanced reasoning capabilities, this feature transforms how users discover information online. Users benefit significantly from conversational interactions, multimodal responses, and the ability to tackle complex questions that previously required multiple searches.
The traditional search paradigm now faces profound change. AI Mode delivers comprehensive answers directly within the interface, potentially reducing website clicks by nearly 30%. Content creators must, therefore, adapt quickly. Rather than pursuing rankings alone, successful optimisation now demands passage-level relevance with clear structure and citation-worthy information.
AI Mode will likely evolve further as Google refines its personalisation capabilities and expands multimodal features. Although currently limited primarily to US users, the technology represents Google’s strategic response to emerging competitors while maintaining its dominant market position.
The search landscape has fundamentally changed. Users who embrace AI Mode gain a powerful research assistant, while content creators who understand its mechanisms can maintain visibility despite declining clickthrough rates. Google has reinvented Search before competitors could disrupt its core business, demonstrating a defensive strategy and genuine technological advancement.
Despite these changes, quality content remains paramount. The difference lies not in whether quality matters but in how that quality must be structured and presented for machines to recognise it effectively. Consequently, users and content creators must adapt to this new reality where AI serves as both interpreter and gatekeeper of online information.
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What is Google’s AI Mode, and how does it differ from traditional Search?
AI Mode is Google’s advanced search feature using artificial intelligence to answer complex queries comprehensively. Unlike traditional Search, it functions more like a chatbot, allowing users to ask multi-part questions and receive detailed responses. It also offers a more conversational experience with the ability to ask follow-up questions.
How does AI Mode impact the way users interact with Google Search?
It transforms the search experience by enabling users to ask longer, more detailed questions. It provides multimodal responses, including text, images, and videos, and allows for real-time data integration. Users can also engage in more exploratory searches and more easily tackle complicated tasks like product comparisons or trip planning.
What technologies power Google’s AI Mode?
It utilises several advanced technologies, including query fan-out (which breaks down complex questions into multiple sub-queries), reasoning chains for enhanced factuality, dense retrieval for precise content selection, and personalisation through user embeddings. These work together to deliver highly relevant and tailored search results.
How does AI Mode affect content creators and SEO strategies?
It significantly impacts content creation, and SEO practises. Traditional SEO focusing solely on rankings is no longer sufficient. Content creators must now optimise for passage-level relevance, create structured and citation-worthy content, and focus on overall value rather than just clickthrough rates. The goal has shifted from ranking to being cited as a trustworthy source within AI-generated responses.
Can users control or customise their AI Mode experience?
Yes, users have some control over their AI Mode experience. They can connect to other Google apps (starting with Gmail) to incorporate more personal context into their searches. Additionally, AI Mode will soon offer personalised suggestions based on previous searches, allowing for a more tailored search experience.