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AI Mode

AI Mode is a conversational mode of Google Search that answers a question with an AI-generated response and links to the web, then takes follow-up questions.

How it works

A person asks a question in their own words, gets an AI-generated answer with links, and can keep asking. Google says AI Mode divides the question into subtopics and searches for each at once, a technique it calls query fan-out. By September 2026, AI Mode was available in Czechia, Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine.

For shopping questions, the answer can include products from Google’s Shopping Graph. Google fills it with Merchant Center data and with what stores publish on the web. It asks stores to keep their Merchant Center data current and describes some of the feed’s conversational attributes as meant mainly for AI Mode.

To appear in AI Mode answers, a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet, as in ordinary Search. Its site must also not be excluded with the Search generative AI control in Search Console; every site is included by default. Our guide to products in AI search covers what a store can influence and how to measure the traffic AI search sends.

Google has been testing ads below and inside AI Mode answers since 2025. They need no separate campaign: Google names Performance Max, Shopping, and Search with broad match or AI Max as eligible.

Where you see it

In Search Console, the Search Generative AI performance report counts impressions of your pages in AI features such as AI Mode, by page, country, device and date. The same impressions also stay in the overall Performance report.

Not to be confused with

  • AI Overviews — one AI summary above the ordinary results, shown only when Google decides it helps. AI Mode is a separate mode that the person opens to ask follow-up questions.
  • AI Max — a Search campaign setting that widens keyword matching. The names are close, but AI Max is only one of the ways ads become eligible for AI Mode.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “AI Mode needs an llms.txt file or special schema markup.” Right: Google says Search doesn’t use such files and needs no special markup for its AI features. For products, it points to Merchant Center feeds.

Sources