Definition
AI Overviews and AI Mode are generative AI features in Google Search. A customized Gemini model writes the answer and bases it on pages that Google’s ranking systems retrieve from the search index, including through additional fan-out queries. A page can only be a source if it’s indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet.
Key takeaways
- Google says the same ranking and quality systems as in regular Search choose the sources. You don’t need special AI files or markup.
- As of August 31, 2026, you can exclude your site from Google’s generative AI features in Search Console. By default, it’s included.
- Cited pages often rank outside the top 10. In two large studies from 2026, more than half of all citations went to such pages.
- For the same question, AI Overviews and AI Mode mostly cite different sources.
- In Germany, about 20–24% of keywords show an AI Overview, almost exclusively for searches with informational intent.
How does Google choose its sources?
Google says it picks the sources using the same ranking and quality systems as in regular Search. These systems retrieve relevant pages from the search index, and the AI model bases its answer on those pages. It can also run extra searches on subtopics, and it links to pages that support individual statements.
Google describes the process in its guide to generative AI features (external site), last updated July 10, 2026. In May 2025, Google also published an explainer on AI Overviews and AI Mode (external site), and Google Search Help still links to it today. The table sums up both. To see how ChatGPT, Perplexity and other systems get their sources, read our guide to generative engine optimization (GEO).
| Step | What Google says | What it means for your page |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Triggering | An AI Overview only appears when Google’s systems see a benefit beyond the regular results and are confident in the answer. | You can’t control whether an AI Overview appears. |
| 2. Fan-out queries | The model can run related searches on subtopics (query fan-out). For a lawn full of weeds, for example, it also searches for herbicides and for ways to prevent weeds. | Your page can be found through one of these fan-out queries. |
| 3. Retrieval | Google’s core ranking systems retrieve relevant, up-to-date pages from the search index. Facts from the Knowledge Graph are added, and in AI Mode, shopping data too. | Only pages in the index can be retrieved. |
| 4. Answer | A customized Gemini model writes the answer. It’s designed to show only information that high-quality web results support. Where information quality is critical (Your Money or Your Life), the bar is higher. | Google recommends original content based on your own experience. |
| 5. Links | While the answer is being generated, the models identify more supporting pages. That’s why Google shows a wider and more varied set of links than in classic search. | Pages beyond the top results can also appear as links. |
Google doesn’t disclose how it weighs individual factors. It also states: “No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems.” Our article What is query fan-out? explains how fan-out queries work.
Which pages are eligible as sources?
Any page that’s indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet can become a source. As of August 31, 2026, Google Search Console also has a Search generative AI control, and your site must be included there. It’s included by default unless someone changes the setting.
Indexed and eligible for a snippet: Google’s documentation on AI features (external site) is explicit: “There are no additional technical requirements.” Even so, Google doesn’t guarantee that it will index or show a page. You manage access with your robots.txt rules for Googlebot, because the AI features are part of Google Search. If your website doesn’t appear on Google at all, read our how-to Why isn’t my website showing up on Google? Our article AI crawlers and robots.txt covers which crawlers from other providers you should allow.
The Search Console control: You’ll find it under Settings › Search generative AI (Search Console Help (external site)). If you exclude your site there, its links and content disappear from AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI features in Google Discover. Google also stops using your content as input for AI responses, and you no longer get traffic or impressions from these features. The change generally takes effect after a few days.
The exclusion isn’t meant to affect your rankings in the rest of Search: Google doesn’t use the control as a ranking signal there. It doesn’t affect AI training either; for that, there’s the Google-Extended token (external site) in robots.txt. Content from other websites that’s similar to yours can still appear in the answers.
Individual pages and passages: According to Google’s documentation on robots meta tags (external site), the rules nosnippet and max-snippet limit what can serve as direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode. But both also limit the regular snippets of your search results. The data-nosnippet attribute excludes individual passages, and noindex removes the whole page from Search.
What you don’t need: Google doesn’t require dedicated AI files, special markup or structured data for these features. Google Search ignores llms.txt files; for more, see llms.txt: what it does and what it doesn’t.
When does Google show an AI Overview?
Google only shows an AI Overview when its systems see a benefit beyond the regular results and are confident in the answer. In Germany, that applies almost exclusively to searches with informational intent. In recent measurements, AI Overviews hardly ever appeared next to map results for local businesses or next to shopping results.
For highly sensitive, explicit or dangerous topics, Google says in its explainer (external site) that it has refined its systems to keep AI Overviews from appearing. Google also aims to show them less often for searches with little high-quality content, known as data voids. AI Mode gives an AI-powered response to far more questions. If it isn’t confident enough in the quality of a response, it shows web links instead, according to Google’s AI Mode help page (external site).
Third-party measurements show which searches are affected:
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Questions: In the US, 64.7% of searches phrased as questions showed an AI Overview, compared with 9.5% of other searches. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis measured this across 55,393 trending searches from March 13 to April 21, 2026.
Source: Xu, Iqbal, Montgomery (IMC 2026) (external site), , updated · US, 55,393 searches
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Intent: Of the German keywords that show an AI Overview, 98.5% have informational intent. Among informational keywords, almost one in three shows an AI Overview (30.7%).
Source: Ahrefs (in German) (external site), · vendor study · 6.99 million German keywords, as of August 2026
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Other answer features: In the same German data, an AI Overview never appeared on a results page together with a featured snippet. Of 291,091 keywords with a local pack (map results for nearby businesses), 114 also showed an AI Overview (0.04%). For organic shopping results, the share was 0.2%.
Source: Ahrefs (in German), · vendor study · 6.99 million German keywords, as of August 2026
| Keywords | Share with an AI Overview |
|---|---|
| with informational intent | 30.7% |
| all | 24.0% |
| with organic shopping results | 0.2% |
| with map results (local pack) | 0.04% (114 of 291,091) |
For small businesses in Germany, this means people who search for a nearby business and get map results currently almost never see an AI Overview. AI Overviews are common for the questions that come earlier, such as how something works or what to look out for. Google describes AI Mode as especially helpful for questions that need further exploration or complex comparisons. In our view, that makes AI Mode important once customers start comparing providers.
Do the cited pages come from the top 10?
Only partly. In two large studies from 2026, fewer than half of the cited pages ranked in the organic top 10 for the same search. A strong ranking clearly improves your chances of being cited, but it isn’t a requirement.
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Conductor analyzed 167.9 million citations from US searches between June 15 and August 15, 2026. Pages ranking first were cited 24.9% of the time; pages ranking tenth, 10.2%. Of all citations, 57% went to pages outside the top 10.
Source: Conductor (external site), · vendor study · US, 167.9 million citations
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Ahrefs found in March 2026 that 37.9% of cited URLs also appeared among the first 10 results for the same search. In July 2025, it was about 76%. Ahrefs improved its parsing method in between, so the figures are only partly comparable. As a possible reason for the drop, Ahrefs points to more fan-out queries.
Source: Ahrefs (external site), · vendor study · 863,000 results pages, no country stated
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Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that almost 30% of cited domains didn’t appear on the first results page of the same search at all. They conclude that Google selects sources through a process separate from its ranking.
Source: Xu, Iqbal, Montgomery (IMC 2026) (external site), , updated · US, Mar 13–Apr 21, 2026
According to Ahrefs, YouTube is the most cited domain. A link doesn’t back up every claim, though. In the US study, the cited pages didn’t support 11.0% of 98,020 checked claims, mostly because the claim was missing there. Google’s AI Overviews help page (external site) also warns: “AI responses may include mistakes.”
How do AI Overviews and AI Mode differ?
An AI Overview is a summary in the search results, while AI Mode is a separate search mode for longer answers and follow-up questions. Google can use different models and techniques, so their answers and links often differ for the same question. As of May 2026, a follow-up question in an AI Overview leads straight into AI Mode.
The names: In German, Google calls AI Overviews Übersicht mit KI (Google Search 101, in German (external site)) and AI Mode KI-Modus. The German version of Search Console Help uses the plural, Übersichten mit KI (Search Console Help, in German (external site)). The predecessor was called Search Generative Experience (SGE). According to Google’s documentation changelog (external site), AI Overviews replaced it in May 2024.
The table compares both features with the featured snippet (external site) and the Gemini app. The descriptions come from Google, the figures from SISTRIX and Ahrefs.
| Aspect | AI Overviews | AI Mode | Featured snippet | Gemini app |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | AI-generated summary with links in the search results | separate search mode with follow-up questions, as a tab or at google.com/ai | a search result shown in a special box with its snippet first | Google’s AI assistant outside Search |
| When it appears | only for searches where Google considers it helpful | when you choose it; without enough confidence, it shows web links | for some questions; in German data from 2026, never together with an AI Overview | only in the Gemini app |
| Sources per answer | median of 11 domains (six countries) | 13.5 domains (Germany) | one page | – |
| Controls for site owners | Search Console control, nosnippet, max-snippet, data-nosnippet, noindex | same as AI Overviews | nosnippet, max-snippet, data-nosnippet | Google-Extended in robots.txt |
Different sources: For the same question, the two mostly cite different pages. In US data from September 2025, only 13.7% of cited URLs overlapped, even though the answers were 86% similar in meaning. AI Mode answers were about four times as long and mentioned 3.3 brands and people on average, compared with 1.3.
Source: Ahrefs, · vendor study · US, September 2025, 540,000 query pairs
SISTRIX studied six countries, including Germany, from December 2025 to April 2026. For the same question, AI Overviews and AI Mode cited different domains 83% of the time. AI Overviews were more stable. For 53% of questions, not a single cited domain changed in 17 weeks, even though the answer text usually changed every week. In AI Mode in Germany, 56% of cited domains were new each week.
Source: SISTRIX (in German) (external site), · vendor study · 82,619 questions, 17 weeks, six countries
A single flow: As of May 19, 2026, you can ask a follow-up question right from an AI Overview and continue in AI Mode, worldwide. The context carries over, and according to Google’s announcement (external site), the links get more relevant with each follow-up. Search Console counts a follow-up question in AI Mode as a new query (external site).
What’s specific to Germany and the EU?
In Germany, AI Overviews have been available since March 26, 2025, and AI Mode since October 8, 2025. Between one in five and one in four German keywords shows an AI Overview. At the EU level, the European Commission opened an antitrust investigation in December 2025 into how Google uses publishers’ content for these features.
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Availability: In Germany, AI Overviews launched in German and English, initially for signed-in users aged 18 and over (Google’s launch post, in German (external site)). Today, Google Search Help (external site) lists them as available to all users in Germany (accessed November 7, 2026). AI Mode has been available since October 8, 2025 (Google’s AI Mode launch post, in German (external site)). The Search Console control and the generative AI performance report (external site) have been open to all websites worldwide since August 31, 2026.
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Prevalence: According to SISTRIX, just over 20% of keywords in Germany show an AI Overview; Ahrefs puts the share at 24.0%. Both analyze millions of keywords, but they select them differently. Our page AI search in Germany: key statistics collects more figures.
Source: SISTRIX (external site), · vendor study · over 100 million keywords in Germany
Source: Ahrefs (in German) (external site), · vendor study · 6.99 million keywords with 100+ monthly searches
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Clicks: According to SISTRIX, only 11% of searchers click the first result for keywords with an AI Overview. Across all results pages, the average is more than 27%. In August 2025, Google wrote that total organic click volume had been “relatively stable year-over-year.” It said reports of sharp declines were often “based on flawed methodologies.” So it remains disputed how many clicks websites lose.
Source: SISTRIX (external site), · vendor study · click-through rate in position 1
Source: Google,
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Language: From December 2025 to April 2026, AI Mode drew on German-language sources 80% of the time for German questions (SISTRIX, Apr 28, 2026, in German).
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Antitrust case: On December 9, 2025, the European Commission (external site) opened a formal antitrust investigation (case AT.40983). It is examining whether Google used web publishers’ content for AI Overviews and AI Mode without appropriate compensation. It is also looking at whether publishers could refuse this only by losing access to Google Search. The case concerns a possible breach of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The Commission notes: “The opening of a formal investigation does not prejudge its outcome.” According to Google (external site), it first tested the Search Console control in the UK, in dialogue with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
What does this mean for your website?
The fundamentals of good search engine optimization apply to AI Overviews: your pages must be crawlable, indexed and eligible for a snippet. Beyond that, Google says what counts most is original content based on your own experience. Nobody can guarantee you a place in the answer.
- Check the basics: Make sure Googlebot can crawl your pages and that they’re indexed. Search Console’s URL Inspection tool (external site) shows both.
- Answer customer questions: On your own pages, answer the questions customers ask before they hire you. According to Google, a separate page for every possible fan-out query doesn’t help in the long run. If such pages mainly exist to manipulate results, Google treats them as spam.
- Keep your Business Profile up to date: AI answers can include information about local businesses. According to Google, an up-to-date Google Business Profile helps with that.
- Decide deliberately: Excluding your site in Search Console costs you all links and traffic from these features. Check the report first to see how many impressions are at stake. Our how-to Opting out of AI Overviews covers when opting out is worth it and which control is the narrowest.
- Monitor: As of August 31, 2026, the generative AI performance report shows your impressions in these features. Our how-to How to measure AI search visibility explains how to track AI visibility as a whole.
Our how-to How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT explains each step in detail.
From our work: how we control what Google may show from datafalke.de
On datafalke.de, Google may crawl every page and choose the snippet length itself. We only keep required notices out of snippets, such as our note that we work exclusively with business clients. We checked this in the delivered HTML of every page in our sitemaps on November 9, 2026.
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1">The value max-snippet:-1 leaves the snippet length to Google. If the rule is missing, Google also chooses the length itself. Our project standard requires this line on every indexable page, and our automated page check reports nosnippet as an error.
<div class="df-legal-note" data-nosnippet>
<p>We work exclusively with businesses …</p>
</div>| Control | Effect, according to Google | On datafalke.de, Nov 8, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| robots.txt for Googlebot | controls crawling for all of Google Search, AI features included | all crawlers may fetch all pages |
| noindex | removes the page from Google Search entirely | only on pages that don’t belong in search, such as the confirmation page after a request |
| nosnippet | no snippet and no direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode | not set |
| max-snippet | limits snippets and direct input; the value -1 leaves the length to Google | max-snippet:-1 |
| data-nosnippet | excludes individual passages from snippets | on required notices |
| Search Console control | excludes the whole site from generative AI features in Search | domain property since Nov 7, 2026; every property defaults to “include” |
| Google-Extended | affects the training of Gemini models and answers in the Gemini app, not Google Search | allowed |
To check the same on your website, open the page source (Ctrl+U) and search for “robots,” “nosnippet” and “max-snippet.” The URL Inspection tool in Search Console shows whether Googlebot sees your rules, including the HTML that Googlebot received. In Search Console, you’ll find the Search generative AI control under Settings.
This website has been online since November 7, 2026. We’ll only report our own figures once the generative AI performance report shows data for it.
Frequently asked questions
Can you turn off AI Overviews in Google Search?
No, Google calls AI Overviews “a core Google Search feature, like knowledge panels.” After a search, though, you can select the Web filter. It shows only text-based links, without features like AI Overviews (Google Search Help (external site)).
Why does my page sometimes appear in AI Overviews and sometimes not?
AI answers and their sources change all the time. In a SISTRIX study, the cited domains changed substantially for 19% of the questions. For 53%, not a single one changed in 17 weeks (SISTRIX, Apr 28, 2026, in German (external site)). So look at periods of time rather than individual searches.
Does Search Console show which searches I appear for in AI Overviews?
No, Google lists only Pages, Countries, Dates and Devices as dimensions of the generative AI performance report. Search Console counts clicks from these features in the regular Performance report, under the Web search type. There, an AI Overview occupies a single position (Search Console Help on impressions and position (external site)).