AI & AEO

Google AI Mode

Quick Definition

AI Mode is Google's expanded conversational AI search experience (announced 2024–2025) — a more chat-style search surface beyond the AI Overview module embedded in classical SERPs.

In context

AI Mode is Google's response to ChatGPT Search and Perplexity — a fully conversational interface with multi-turn queries, multimodal inputs, and grounded responses. By 2026 it is in broader rollout for opted-in users. Optimisation overlaps heavily with AI Overviews optimisation: structured content, schema markup, topical authority. The new variable in AI Mode is multi-turn context — your content may be retrieved on follow-up questions where the original query did not match.

Example

A Toronto agency's article on 'Canadian SEO costs in 2026' is retrieved by AI Mode on the original query and again on follow-up questions like 'and how does that compare to in-house?' — multi-turn citation surface.

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Related terms

Zero-Click Search

A zero-click search is when a user gets their answer directly from the SERP — featured snippets, AI Overviews, Knowledge Panel, calculators — without clicking a result.

Anchored Citation

An anchored citation is when an AI engine inline-links a specific factual claim in its answer back to the exact source URL, often with anchor text or a numbered superscript.

Search Generative Experience (SGE → AI Overviews)

SGE was Google's experimental name (2023–2024) for the AI-generated answer module above organic search results; it graduated to production as Google AI Overviews in mid-2024.

Entity Recognition

Entity recognition is the process by which search engines and LLMs identify the discrete real-world entities (people, companies, products, places) referenced in a piece of content.

AI Snippet

An AI snippet is a short, AI-generated passage extracted from your content that an AI engine surfaces as the answer to a user query, typically with a citation back to your source.

Claude Search

Claude Search is Anthropic's web-search capability inside Claude, which queries live web sources and synthesizes cited answers similar to ChatGPT search and Perplexity.

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