What Is Google AI Mode? What It Did to SEO, With Our Own Data

Google AI Mode didn’t kill SEO. It moved the click. Here’s our client data, a 90-run US AI test and the five things we do to get cited in AI Mode answers.

What is AI Mode, and what did it do to SEO?

Google AI Mode is a search mode that turns the results page into a conversation. It splits your question into dozens of smaller searches, reads the web and writes one answer, with source links inside it. Google rolled it out to everyone in the US on May 20, 2025, and to markets like Türkiye in February 2026.

Here is what we see after 17 months: AI Mode did not kill SEO. It moved the click. Informational queries (“what is”, “how to”) now get answered inside Google. Comparison, evaluation and buying queries still send people to websites. If your traffic report only shows the first group shrinking, you are not losing your business. You are losing the part of your traffic that rarely paid the bills. Below is our own data, and the five things we do for clients.

AI Mode vs. AI Overviews: what’s the difference?

Clients mix these up in almost every first call. They are not the same product.

The practical difference: in AI Overviews, you still have the classic results underneath. In AI Mode, the only way to be seen is to be a source inside the answer.

How AI Mode builds an answer: query fan-out

According to Google’s “AI features and your website” documentation, AI Mode issues many related searches across subtopics to build one response. This is called query fan-out.

Example: “How do I choose an SEO agency for a B2B SaaS company?” can fan out into “SEO agency pricing,” “how to check agency references,” “what B2B SEO includes” and more. You can rank first for the main query and still be missing from the answer, because you are absent from the sub-queries.

That is why rank tracking for a single keyword is now half the picture. The other half is whether you show up across the questions behind it.

What our data shows

1. Impressions fell. Click-through rate went up.

Here is Search Console data from one of our clients, a global online video editing tool, at domain level. We compared June 15 to Sept. 12, 2025, with the same window in 2026.

How we read it: AI answers absorbed long-tail informational impressions. What’s left is a smaller audience with higher intent. Google updates and the client’s own content work ran in the same period, so we don’t pin this table on AI Mode alone. The direction is clear, though. Impressions dropped twice as fast as clicks.

The math that follows matters more than the chart. With a 2% conversion rate, an 18.5% click drop means conversion has to rise to about 2.45% to keep revenue flat. That is a conversion problem, not an SEO problem.

2. Featured snippets are going away

We lost many featured snippets across several clients. In a share of the “what is” and “how to” queries we held for years, the box is simply gone. An AI answer sits in its place. We didn’t log these losses query by query, so we won’t give you a precise number. The direction is clear: when the snippet goes, the clicks from that query go with it. To see how featured snippets gave way to AI answers, compare 2016 and 2024 in our 35 years of SEO evolution time machine.

3. Being cited is not the same as being recommended

From Oct. 5 to 11, 2026, we ran 18 non-branded US questions about GEO agencies 90 times across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, using GeoGenie. We collected 156 citations from 137 pages.

About 28.5% of cited pages (39 of 137) were “best X agency” lists. Every agency-published list we found included the publisher, and nine of 12 put the publisher at No. 1. Yet the brands AI actually recommended were the ones that appeared across many third-party lists.

Our own result: Stradiji placed 16th of 16 brands, with a 4.4% visibility share. We’re not hiding that. It’s the point. Visibility you can measure is the starting line, not the finish. Full method in I Asked AI for the Best GEO Agency.

4. AI first thought we were Stradivarius

I use AI Mode every day. I use it for research, to see how it answers questions about our clients, and most of all to test our own brand with different prompts.

When AI Mode launched in Türkiye, it mixed up “Stradiji” with the fashion brand Stradivarius. Funny answers, made-up services, work we never did. It cleaned itself up within the first month, and Google fixing its own errors likely played a big part.

The lesson for any brand: AI won’t recommend you before it recognizes you. Entity signals, meaning your name, what you do and who you are described the same way everywhere, are the entry ticket.

5. The US is ahead. Other markets are catching up.

On Sept. 20, 2026, we checked 39 commercial queries across eight industries in US English and in Turkish, using Semrush. AI Overviews appeared on 32 of 39 US queries (82.1%) and 25 of 39 Turkish queries (64.1%). An 18-point gap.

If you sell internationally, this is a window. The SERP your buyers see outside the US looks like the US SERP did a year ago. The content you build now gets cited later. More context in What AI Overviews Did to Search in Türkiye.

So is SEO dead?

No. The claim we hear most is “AI Mode and AI Overviews are ending organic traffic.” We disagree.

It’s partly true for informational content. A “what is SEO” post won’t get the clicks it got in 2023. Semrush’s AI Mode research found that most AI Mode sessions end without a visit to an external site (Semrush, AI Mode study). The same research shows clicks continue on shopping and decision-stage queries.

Our view by funnel stage:

• Top of funnel (learn): Clicks will keep shrinking. The goal here is to be the cited source, not the click.
• Middle of funnel (compare, evaluate): Still open. Buyers narrowing their options click from the AI answer to the site with its own data, a real comparison table and a clear opinion.
• Bottom of funnel (buy, request a quote): Classic SEO still works. Local packs, product listings and brand searches live here.

And the part people skip: SEO is the foundation of GEO. AI Mode builds answers from pages in Google’s index. A page that isn’t crawled, indexed and fast won’t make it into an AI answer either.

Five things that get you into AI Mode answers

We sort these by the Three Doors of AI Visibility: Reach, Recognize, Believe.

1. Make sure you’re indexed (Reach). Open the Page indexing report in Search Console. A page that isn’t indexed is missing from every branch of the fan-out.
2. Cover the sub-questions (Reach). Write the main answer, then pull follow-up questions from People Also Ask and from AI Mode’s own follow-ups. Answer each one briefly and clearly on the page.
3. Describe your entity the same way everywhere (Recognize). Name, what you do, founding year and address should match on your site, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile and in press. That’s how we stopped being Stradivarius.
4. Show your own data (Believe). AI quotes “we measured X on this date,” not “we’re the leader.” Add one measurement, case or table of your own to every important page.
5. Invest in the middle of the funnel. “X vs. Y,” “how to choose X,” “what drives X pricing.” These pages earn clicks today and citations tomorrow.

How do you measure AI Mode traffic?

The bad news: Search Console has no separate AI Mode filter. AI Mode clicks and impressions are folded into the regular Web report, and Google counts position for AI features at the block level, not per link.

We use three sources together:

1. Numbers: In Search Console, compare the last 12 months with the 12 before. List the 20 pages that lost the most clicks. In GA4, check whether those pages drove forms, carts or quote requests.
2. Behavior: Use Microsoft Clarity to see what visitors from AI sources actually do on the page.
3. Observation: Once a month, ask your key questions in AI Mode yourself and log the answer and sources with a date. AI answers are personalized, so one screenshot proves little. A dated log does.

A finding in one source is a hypothesis. In two, it’s worth discussing. In three, act on it.

Frequently asked questions

When did Google AI Mode launch?

Google rolled out AI Mode to all US users on May 20, 2025, at Google I/O (TechCrunch, May 20, 2025). It reached Türkiye on Feb. 18, 2026.

Is AI Mode free?

Yes. It’s available from the AI Mode tab in Google Search and in the Google app.

Will AI Mode kill SEO?

No. It cuts clicks on informational queries, but it builds answers from pages in Google’s index. Pages that aren’t indexed, fast and trustworthy don’t make it into the answer. SEO remains the foundation of GEO.

How do I know if my site appears in AI Mode?

Search Console doesn’t report it separately. Ask your key questions in AI Mode regularly and log the sources, or use an AI visibility tool such as GeoGenie. For a quick start, see our AI visibility checklist.

Should I optimize for AI Mode and AI Overviews separately?

The basics are the same: get indexed, answer clearly, describe your entity consistently, show your own data. The difference is that AI Mode uses follow-up questions and query fan-out, so covering sub-questions matters more there.

The one thing to do this week

Open Search Console, compare the last 12 months with the previous 12 and pull the 20 pages that lost the most clicks. Then ask: how many of them actually made money?

Want to see where you stand in AI Mode and other AI engines? Run your site through our free GEO Score Card. It checks your GEO health across nine categories.

GEO Score Card: Calculate Your Score →

A note from Mert: The data in this post comes from our own measurements, with the sample and dates in each section. AI answers vary by person and over time, so your own tests may differ. If they do, tell me. I used AI assistance to draft this post. The data, cases and opinions are mine.