Google Search's dedicated conversational AI experience, a separate surface where users can have a multi-turn conversation with Google's generative model.
More about AI Mode
AI Mode is Google Search's dedicated conversational AI surface, separate from AI Overviews. Where AI Overviews append a single generated summary to the top of a regular results page, AI Mode is a full conversational experience where users can ask follow-up questions, refine their query, and explore a topic across multiple turns, all grounded in live Search results.
Under the hood, AI Mode uses a query fan-out approach: a single user question is expanded into multiple concurrent sub-queries that retrieve a broader set of pages than a traditional search would. The model then synthesizes the results into a conversational reply, citing the sources it used. This is closer to the behavior of AI search engines like Perplexity and ChatGPT Search than to classic Google.
Eligibility for AI Mode follows the same rules as AI Overviews: pages must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet. For website owners, the practical implications are the same as broader AI SEO: structured, authoritative content that directly answers questions is more likely to be retrieved during fan-out and cited in the conversation.
