AI Mode

AI Mode is Google's conversational AI search. You ask a question, it writes a full answer with links to the web, and you can keep going with follow-up questions. Google calls it its most powerful AI search experience.

AI Mode is a part of Google Search itself. You will also see it called Google AI Mode or AI Mode in Search.

For your brand, AI Mode is one more place where a buyer gets a written answer that names some companies and leaves out others. The audience is large: Google says AI Mode passed one billion monthly users within a year of its debut.

How AI Mode Works

AI Mode answers one question by running many searches at once and writing a single response from what they return. Google calls the technique query fan-out.

The process has three steps:

1. AI Mode splits the question. It divides your question into subtopics and searches for each one simultaneously, across multiple data sources.
2. A Gemini model writes the answer. It brings those results together into one response. In May 2026, Google made Gemini 3.5 Flash the default model in AI Mode.
3. The answer links to the web. Google's guidance for site owners says its models find more supporting pages while the response is generated, so the answer can show a wider and more diverse set of links than a classic web search.

You do not always get a written answer. When Google is not confident enough in an AI response, AI Mode shows a set of web links instead.

A link to your page inside an AI Mode answer is an AI citation. AI Mode is one of several AI search engines, and that entry covers how they retrieve pages and write answers in general.

Where AI Mode Is Available

As of October 2026, AI Mode is available in more than 200 countries and territories and in more than 90 languages. Google's help page for AI Mode keeps the full list.

AI Mode is a recent product. Google introduced it on March 5, 2025 as an early experiment in Search Labs. On May 20, 2025, it began rolling AI Mode out to everyone in the U.S., with no Labs sign-up required.

Some features reach fewer markets than AI Mode does. The option to switch to the Gemini 3 Pro model, for example, is listed as English only and limited to certain countries.

Google says it will keep refining AI Mode and expanding what it does, so treat any availability list as a snapshot.

AI Mode vs. AI Overviews

An AI Overview is a single summary at the top of a regular results page. AI Mode is a conversation, with a fuller answer and room for follow-up questions. Google's own description is that AI Mode expands what AI Overviews can do, with more advanced reasoning and ways of interacting.

Three differences matter:

• When it appears: Google shows an AI Overview only when its systems judge it additive to classic Search, so one often does not trigger. AI Mode opens when you choose it.
• What it is for: Google describes AI Mode as particularly helpful for queries that need further exploration, reasoning, or complex comparisons.
• Which pages it links: Google notes that the two may use different models and techniques, so the responses and links they show will vary.

The two are connected. Since January 2026, you can ask a follow-up question from an AI Overview and carry on in AI Mode. Google said in May 2026 that this works on desktop and mobile worldwide.

What AI Mode Means for Your Website

AI Mode takes its links from the pages Google Search has indexed. To be shown as a supporting link, a page has to be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet.

Qualifying is only the first step. AI Mode runs a separate search for each subtopic of a question, so the pages it links depend on those smaller searches as well as on the question as typed.

The Google AI Mode SEO guide covers how AI Mode picks its sources, what your brand can change, and how to measure the result.

To see where your brand stands in AI search before you change anything, get your AI Search Audit.

Frequently Asked Questions