Google AI Mode: the next big thing for your content and SEO strategy

Expanded AI-driven search capabilities

In March 2025, Google announced the launch of Gemini 2.0 for AI Overviews. For the billions of users who have adopted the search engine’s AI feature, version 2.0 promises advanced capabilities, delivering better results more quickly and for more complex questions. 

But in May, Google went even further — unveiling AI Mode, a new conversational AI feature built directly into Search.

What’s Google AI Mode?

AI Mode is a tool accessed from a tab in Google Search. It allows users to query Gemini, Google’s LLM (large language model). Gemini provides rich summarizations and deeper discovery by engaging in follow-up questions with the user.

This conversational approach allows Google to compete more directly with AI search assistants like ChatGPT, Grok and Perplexity. It’s a big step beyond their current AI Overviews. While Gemini powers both features, AI Mode uses a custom version of the LLM designed for advanced reasoning. It’s multimodal, too, meaning it can generate diagrams, charts and images to help make information easier to understand.

How is AI Mode different from AI Overviews?

	AI Overviews	AI Mode
Purpose	Static summary	Interactive assistant
Experience	No direct follow-up	Conversational
Input	Question or keyword	Complex queries
Output	Text-based with links	Multimodal with links
Visibility	Featured at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs)	Accessed from a tab in Google Search
Frequency	Most often appear for information queries	Available for all searches

How Google AI Mode will change the Google Search experience

Google’s AI Mode transforms search as we know it. Not because it’s vastly different from AI search via ChatGPT, Grok or Perplexity. But because it brings a full, personalized AI experience to 24.9 billion U.S. users per month. 

Traditional Google users are already comfortable with AI Overviews. In a December 2024 study, the global consultancy, Bain, found “about 80% of search users rely on AI summaries at least 40% of the time.” Even among consumers who are skeptical of generative AI, roughly half report that “…most of their queries are answered directly on the search page without a click.” 

With AI Mode, we can expect behavior to shift more as users:

• Engage in conversation — directly in search engine results pages (SERP)
• Ask multi-part questions in their own words — without guessing keywords
• Expect high-value, concise answers — without the chore of comparing articles
• Accept responses — while easing their skepticism of AI accuracy 

For example, traditionally, a user might search, “What are common cold symptoms?” and an AI Overview will suffice. With AI Mode (in the Google mobile app), a user might upload a photo with, “I have a red, itchy rash on my arm and feel dizzy. Is this an allergic reaction? What should I do?”

AI Mode is available to all U.S. users with a personal Google account. As it becomes available to more users, it could further establish Google as the “ultimate homepage” — meeting user needs on the spot without click-throughs to other websites.

How Google AI Mode will change how content ranks

AI assistants like Gemini, the power behind AI Mode, pull from multiple sources to generate a cohesive response. Responses may reference or cite brands, offering a major opportunity to demonstrate Google’s “stamp of approval” on your trustworthiness and attract users to your content. (Consider the power of having your content displayed as a Google Featured Snippet). That changes the content ranking game — and click-through rates (CTRs) — because there’s potential to impact your site traffic positively (by appearing in a generated answer) or negatively (by not appearing). 

AI search pushes brands to compete for fewer sacred mentions. It’s a mind shift from simply ranking to citation. It means staying the course or renewing emphasis on: 

• High-quality, unique, user-centric content tailored to user intent — content is still king
• Brand and domain authority 
• Optimized content that meets SEO best practices

Think beyond “what is” questions to follow-up questions. Address the “why” and “how” in clear, direct language. 

AI Overviews reminded marketers that content must align with what people are looking for. AI Mode takes that even further — helping you understand and shape content for every kind of user intent: informational, commercial, navigational and transactional.

Why your brand should prioritize AI Mode optimization

AI is here to stay, and with it, major competitive opportunities for brands and healthcare marketers that prioritize evolving to meet the new content and SEO landscape. If you’ve already begun to pivot for AI Overviews, you’ve seen that while click-through rates may be decreasing, users who visit your site are more inclined to convert. 

Optimizing for AI Mode can deliver even greater value. As you work to gain visibility, you increase your chances across all LLMs. That’s important to meet the next generation of consumers where they are. Twenty-nine percent of gen Z users already use AI tools like ChatGPT for healthcare needs like “diagnosing” conditions and exploring treatment options.

Gain a competitive edge

Because AI-driven search is relatively new and continuously evolving, it offers savvy marketers who represent brands of all sizes a chance to gain more visibility than traditional organic listings. Optimize for AI Mode before your competitors catch up — as marketing teams are under more pressure than ever to deliver results like patient growth and ROI (return on investment). As digital marketing expert Neil Patel stated, “Once AI Mode goes mainstream… [the brands] that optimize for Google AI now will dominate.”

Learn how to recession-proof your healthcare marketing strategy in our blog post.

Tips to optimize your content and SEO strategy for Google’s AI search

When it comes to optimizing content for AI-driven search, the past year has taught us a thing or two:

• Use plain, conversational language. AI tools — and humans — prefer easy-to-understand content.
• Invest in fresh insights. Search engines and AI devalue outdated, plagiarized or repetitive content, including fully AI-generated content with no human oversight. 
• Apply schema markup. It tells search engines — and AI — what your content is about and how to best display it to users in SERP.
• Add structure. Headings, subheadings, bulleted lists, tables and short, focused paragraphs make it easy for AI to lift your key points.
• Remain focused on E-E-A-T. Health systems that demonstrate experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness also rise in AI.

AI needs well-structured content to generate meaningful, trustworthy and accurate answers. In short, it needs to find you as much as you need to be found. 

Seeing is believing. We conducted a ChatGPT vs Google comparison test.

Will Google AI Mode accelerate AI adoption?

Patel recently reported a 123% increase in referral traffic to his company’s website from ChatGPT. But that’s a drop in the bucket compared to Google, where search volume is 373 times bigger. 

These numbers reflect early adopters — the tech curious, the ones willing to try new tools and learn through trial and error. But AI Mode reaches a much wider audience: the skeptics, the change-averse, the people who still “Google it” because it’s served us well so far. 

With AI Mode, late adopters won’t need to download a new app or change a habit. Instead, just click a tab within a familiar interface powered by AI that you’re already used to through AI Overviews. It will thrust AI search into the mainstream and redefine what it means to “Google.”

What this means for healthcare marketers

The rise of AI Mode means healthcare marketers must adapt how they communicate with consumers and how they advocate for budget and resources.

External messaging must be well-defined, relevant and value-driven — the content that earns a spot in AI summaries. You could say the same about internal messaging. Marketers need to clearly demonstrate the reach, potential and value of AI search tools.

AI Mode creates an opportunity to educate your leadership teams. Now is the time to demonstrate that modern content strategy requires modern tools — and skilled strategists who understand how people really search for health answers today.

Let us help you use AI to enhance SEO and content marketing strategies

Want support? WGC Catalyst, our AI consulting service, can help you stay ahead of the curve. Our content strategists do their part to help optimize client content for AI-driven search.

Follow-up questions about optimizing your content for AI-driven search