Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced during the recent I/O 2025 conference that the company’s AI Mode is now available as a search component for all logged-in U.S. users, a significant shift from its previous opt-in status.
AI Mode, similar to AI Overviews, provides users with answers to their queries along with links to the sources. What sets AI Mode apart is its ability to allow searchers to ask follow-up questions directly within the same tab, resembling the functionality of ChatGPT or Claude.
Powered by Gemini 2.0 technology and leveraging Google’s extensive web-page index, AI Mode offers a unique advantage that other generative AI platforms cannot match.
In a blog post on the “Search Central Blog,” Google’s John Mueller shared content optimization guidelines for AI answers. While the post did not introduce groundbreaking tactics for publishers, it did provide insights into the future of organic search traffic.
Here is a summary of the key points highlighted in Mueller’s guidelines:
‘Focus on unique, valuable content for people’
Mueller emphasizes the importance of creating helpful, reliable, people-centric content, suggesting that AI Mode prioritizes content that aligns with the helpful content algorithm.
‘Provide a great page experience’
Ensuring fast page loads, quick answers, and user-friendly interfaces are crucial aspects highlighted by Mueller to enhance the overall visitor experience.
‘Ensure we [Google] can access your content’
Mueller underscores the significance of making sure that Google can crawl and index your content effectively, emphasizing the use of tools like Search Console’s URL inspection tool.
‘Make sure structured data matches the visible content’
Structured data markup, such as Schema.org, plays a vital role in helping search engines and AI bots extract essential information from web pages. Mueller stresses the importance of aligning structured data with the visible text on the page.
‘Go beyond text for multimodal success’
Incorporating high-quality images and videos on web pages can enhance the chances of being cited in AI answers, especially as AI-powered searchers increasingly seek multimedia content.
‘Understand the full value of your visits’
Mueller’s advice to understand the full value of visits suggests a shift towards quality content over quantity, indicating a potential decrease in organic web traffic as AI Mode delivers detailed answers that may reduce the need for users to click through to websites.
While none of the guidelines are groundbreaking, they shed light on Google’s approach to generating AI answers and citing sources. Publishers may need to adjust their strategies to adapt to the changing landscape brought about by AI Mode. One suggested approach is to focus on answering “do” queries as part of a content strategy.
In conclusion, the rise of AI Mode and its detailed answers may lead to inevitable declines in traditional organic search traffic, prompting publishers to rethink their approaches or risk getting left behind in the evolving search landscape.