AI Mode and the future of the click: what still earns a visit

AI Mode answers the whole question inside Google, with links to its sources, and for many simple searches that answer is enough. More searches will show your brand without sending a visit, while the clicks that remain tend to be more considered. The answer isn’t to chase every lost click: it’s to be the source that gets cited, and to measure more than clicks.

What AI Mode is

AI Mode is a conversational mode in Google Search, built for questions that need exploration, reasoning or comparison. You ask, get an AI-generated answer with links to the web, and carry on with follow-up questions. When Google isn’t confident enough in an AI response, it shows a set of web links instead.

Google describes the technique behind it as query fan-out: AI Mode breaks a question into subtopics, searches for each of them at the same time, and combines what it finds into one response. Your page can therefore be retrieved for a sub-search the user never typed.

AI Overviews are different. They appear on the normal results page, only when Google’s systems judge them to add something to classic search, and summarise the gist above the usual results. AI Mode is a separate experience with more advanced reasoning and longer conversations. The two can use different models and techniques, so they don’t always cite the same pages, and Google has started letting people move from an AI Overview into AI Mode with a follow-up question.

To appear as a supporting link, Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet. There are no extra technical requirements and no special markup.

How query fan-out works

1. QuestionA long, specific question, often with follow-ups
2. Fan-outBroken into subtopics and related searches
3. SearchesEach subtopic searched at the same time
4. SynthesisResults combined into one response
5. Answer and linksSources cited, and the conversation continues

What it means for clicks

For simple informational queries, such as a definition, a quick fact or a conversion, the answer on the page is often all people need, so fewer of them click. The pattern widely reported across Search Console accounts is impressions rising while clicks stay flat.

Part of the reason is how the data is counted. Search Console includes appearances in AI features, AI Mode among them, in its normal Web performance data rather than reporting them separately, so being shown or cited can add impressions whether or not anyone clicks.

The clicks that remain tend to be more considered. Google says clicks from results pages with AI features are higher quality, with visitors more likely to spend time on the site. Treat that as Google’s claim, and check it against your own engagement and conversion data.

Impressions up, clicks flat

ImpressionsClicks

More AI answers

M1M3M5M7M9M12

Index, month 1 = 100

What still earns the click

AI answers compress information. They don’t replace the moments when people need to check, compare, act or go deeper.

• Decisions with stakes. Choosing a supplier, a clinic, a course or a mortgage: people read the summary, then visit the sources they need to trust.
• Comparisons where detail matters. Prices, specifications, contract terms and trade-offs that don’t fit into a summary.
• Tools. Calculators, configurators, quote forms and checkers, where the answer is something you do on the page.
• Local and transactional needs. Booking, buying, checking stock or getting a quote all end on a website or a business profile.
• Original data. If you publish research nobody else has, you’re the natural source to cite.
• Depth. Guides with worked examples, templates and detail people want to keep or come back to.

Where clicks hold up

Commercial intent →

Transactional: clicks hold upConsidered: cited and clickedQuick facts: answered in placeResearch: cited, fewer clicksPlumber near meBuy running trainersBest CRM for agenciesCompare business loansWhat is hreflangUK bank holidaysHow fan-out worksCauses of damp

Query complexity →

Be the source that’s cited

How AI systems choose their sources isn’t public, so what follows combines what Google documents with what we observe, rather than a formula. It’s the core of our AI search optimisation work.

• Answer clearly. Lead each section with the answer, use headings that match real questions, and keep facts specific and current.
• Cover the whole topic. Because of fan-out, a page can be retrieved for sub-questions. Cover the related questions your buyers ask, in depth, rather than writing one thin page per keyword. A content strategy built around topics does this by design.
• Make your entity unambiguous. Use one consistent name and description, a clear About page, named authors with real credentials, and Organization structured data. The trust signals in E-E-A-T for service businesses matter here too.
• Earn mentions elsewhere. Reviews, press coverage and industry lists that describe you consistently give any system that reads the web more evidence of who you are.
• Don’t block what you want cited. Google’s preview controls, such as nosnippet and max-snippet, also limit how a page can appear in AI features, so check they’re only where you mean them to be.

Build brand demand

If fewer generic questions end in a visit, more of the value moves to people who already know your name: they search for you, ask an assistant about you or come straight to your site. Brand demand comes from being useful and visible where your buyers already look, through PR, partnerships, events and content people share. It’s slower to build than rankings, but a searcher who already wants you is less likely to settle for a summary.

Measure beyond the click

• Impressions and position by page type in Search Console, next to clicks. Rising impressions with flat clicks is a signal to read, not an error to fix.
• Branded search over time, with Search Console’s branded queries filter or a regex, as described in measuring SEO in GA4 and Search Console.
• Conversions. Key events and revenue from organic search, by landing page. Fewer but better clicks should show up here.
• AI referrals. In GA4, add an AI assistants channel to a custom channel group, matching sources such as chatgpt.com|perplexity.ai|gemini.google.com|copilot.microsoft.com, and place it above Referral, because GA4 assigns traffic to the first channel it matches. Some assistant traffic arrives without a referrer and lands in Direct.
• Citations. Bing Webmaster Tools now has an AI Performance report, in public preview, that counts how often your pages are cited in Copilot and Bing’s AI answers. Our guide to Bing, Copilot and IndexNow explains why Bing matters here.

---

Want to know where you stand in AI answers? Request a free SEO audit: it includes a check of whether AI Overviews and ChatGPT mention your brand for your key queries.