AI & GEO
Google AI Mode
What is Google AI Mode?
Google AI Mode is a conversational search experience inside Google Search, powered by Gemini, that answers a query with an AI-generated response and links to sources, and lets the user ask follow-up questions. It was introduced as a Search Labs experiment in March 2025 and rolled out to all users in the US at Google I/O in May 2025, later expanding to more countries and languages.
AI Mode is separate from AI Overviews: AI Overviews appear at the top of regular results for some queries, while AI Mode is a dedicated tab or mode where the whole result is the AI answer. Google says AI Mode uses a "query fan-out" technique, running many related searches at once to build its answer.
Why it matters for SEO
AI Mode changes what visibility means in Google: instead of ranking ten blue links, sites compete to be one of the sources the answer draws on and links to. Content that covers subtopics clearly and answers likely follow-up questions has more chances to be retrieved by the fan-out searches.
Example
A user asks AI Mode "Is a heat pump worth it in an old stone house in Scotland?" The answer covers insulation, running costs and grants, with links to sources. An installer's article titled "Heat pumps in solid-wall homes: what to check first" is cited in the insulation section because it answers that subtopic directly.
Free tools for Google AI Mode
Put the theory to work
LazySEO researches keywords, writes SEO articles and publishes them to your site on a schedule.