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Google AI Mode is the conversational search mode inside Google Search that answers complex questions with a full AI-powered response and links to supporting websites, and Google says it lets people ask nuanced questions that might have previously taken multiple searches (Google Search Central). Curve Compliance helps healthcare brands see how Google's AI answers, AI Mode included, name and cite them. AI Visibility is a feature in Curve Compliance, and Curve also offers it as a managed service. The managed service is Curve AEO, with a team that handles the strategy and execution for you. Here is what AI Mode is, how it differs from AI Overviews, and what to do about it.
Want to see what AI Mode tells patients when they ask about care like yours? Book a call to see AI Visibility on your own questions, or to talk about the managed service.
What Google AI Mode is
Google rolled AI Mode out across the US in May 2025 and calls it "our most powerful AI search, with more advanced reasoning and multimodality, and the ability to go deeper through follow-up questions and helpful links to the web." Under the hood, "AI Mode uses our query fan-out technique, breaking down your question into subtopics and issuing a multitude of queries simultaneously on your behalf" (Google).
Google's guidance for site owners says AI Mode "is particularly helpful for queries where further exploration, reasoning, or complex comparisons are needed" (Google Search Central). Since May 2026, Gemini 3.5 Flash is the default model in AI Mode for everyone, and people can ask a follow-up right from an AI Overview and flow into AI Mode (Google). In practice, AI Overviews and AI Mode are two doors into the same conversation.
How big AI Mode is
Google reports huge reach. A second measure shows AI Mode is still a small slice of all Google searches. Both are true, and the table puts them side by side.
| Figure | What it measures | Source |
|---|---|---|
| More than 1 billion | Monthly AI Mode users worldwide, one year after launch (May 2026) | |
| More than doubling | AI Mode queries, every quarter since launch | |
| Triple | Average AI Mode search length compared with a traditional Search query, US | |
| 0.34% | Share of US Google searches that made their way to AI Mode, January to April 2026 | SparkToro |
| Over 2.5 billion | Monthly active users of AI Overviews worldwide (May 2026) | |
| More than a billion | Health questions people ask on Google Search every day, worldwide (March 2026) |
SparkToro found only 0.34% of US Google searches reached AI Mode from January to April 2026, while noting the number "is almost certainly growing fast" (SparkToro). Patients already lean on AI inside search: among recent AI health users, 55% used AI tools built into web search, such as Google's AI summaries (West Health-Gallup), and KFF found 68% of US adults sought health information from internet search engines in the past year (KFF).
How AI Mode differs from AI Overviews
Google says plainly that "AI Mode and AI Overviews may use different models and techniques, so the set of responses and links they show will vary" (Google Search Central). Ahrefs measured how much, comparing AI Mode and AI Overview answers for the same queries in September 2025 US data.
| Finding | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Citations shared by both answers for the same query | 13.7% | Ahrefs |
| Length of AI Mode answers compared with AI Overviews | About 4x longer | Ahrefs |
| People and brands mentioned per answer | 3.3 in AI Mode vs 1.3 in AI Overviews | Ahrefs |
| Answers with no cited sources | 3% in AI Mode vs 11% in AI Overviews | Ahrefs |
| Chance a brand named in the AI Overview also appears in AI Mode | 61% | Ahrefs |
Two findings matter most for healthcare. Ahrefs found health websites "were cited almost twice as much in AI Mode as in AI Overviews," and that AI Mode appears to lean "more heavily on encyclopedic and detailed medical sources" (Ahrefs). And because AI Mode names more brands per answer, a comparison question has room for more than one practice. A citation in one surface rarely carries over to the other, so check both. For how to win the shorter one, see how to rank in AI Overviews.
What patients ask AI Mode
Google says the average AI Mode search in the US is triple the length of a traditional query, brainstorming queries grew 30% faster than queries overall since launch, and searches starting with "where to," "where should I" and "ideas for" are growing (Google). Those are decision questions. In healthcare they sound like this:
- "Where should I go for a second opinion on knee pain in Denver if I have Aetna?"
- "Which pediatric dentists near Austin have Saturday hours and take new patients?"
- "What is the difference between seeing a dermatologist and a med spa for acne scars?"
- "Telehealth therapist in Ohio who sees teens and takes my insurance"
Each one fans out into subtopics: location, insurance, hours, credentials, reviews, what to expect. Google says AI Mode breaks a question into subtopics and runs many searches at once, so pages that answer each subtopic clearly give those searches something to find. For how the fan-out works, see query fan-out for healthcare. Google is also expanding agentic booking in Search to local experiences and services in the US (Google). Google's examples are outside healthcare for now, but accurate hours, locations and booking details on your own site are worth keeping current either way.
How AI Mode picks and keeps its sources
Eligibility is the same as for AI Overviews: Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet, with "no additional technical requirements" (Google Search Central). After that, Ahrefs' 20-day tracking study shows how much AI Mode citations move.
- Daily churn. Around 60% of AI Mode citations disappeared by the next day, the same as ChatGPT and more than AI Overviews at about 50% (Ahrefs).
- Ranking helps them last. On AI Mode, around 40% of top-three pages stayed cited for at least a week, compared with 20% of pages ranking sixth or lower (Ahrefs).
- Ranking is not required. Around 75% of pages cited by AI Mode and ChatGPT didn't rank in Google for the same question (Ahrefs).
- "Best" questions churn most. On ChatGPT and AI Mode, around 64% to 76% of cited pages changed from one day to the next; brand questions were the most stable and "best X" questions among the least (Ahrefs).
- Brand signals travel. Across 75,000 brands, YouTube mentions had the strongest correlation with AI visibility (about 0.737) in ChatGPT, AI Mode and AI Overviews (Ahrefs).
AI Mode SEO: a checklist for healthcare marketers
Google's position is that "optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO" (Google). That is good news: the work is familiar. Here is how it applies to AI Mode.
- Cover the whole question. For each service, answer the subtopics a patient's question fans out into: who it is for, what to expect, insurance, hours, locations and how to book. Do it on one strong page or a small set. Google warns that separate content for every variation, made to manipulate AI responses, violates its scaled content abuse spam policy (Google).
- Write for comparisons. AI Mode is built for comparison questions, so explain options the way your clinicians would in a consult. Clinicians review and approve anything medical before it goes live.
- Keep facts in plain text. Services, insurance, hours and providers belong in crawlable HTML. Google also asks that structured data match the visible text and that your Business Profile stay up to date.
- Rank for the questions you want. Higher-ranking pages kept their AI Mode citations longer in Ahrefs' study, so regular SEO still pays.
- Add images and video. Google says its generative AI features can bring in relevant images and video, and YouTube mentions led Ahrefs' brand correlations.
- Measure AI Mode on its own. Google counts AI Mode in Search Console within the "Web" search type, and citations churn daily, so look at several days of answers before changing a page. See what to track across Google's AI answers.
How Curve Compliance helps
AI Visibility is a feature in Curve Compliance, and Curve also offers it as a managed service. In Curve, the feature is called AI Visibility (AEO), and the managed service is Curve AEO. Introducing Curve AEO: a service that helps you understand how your brand appears in AI search, with a team that handles the strategy and execution for you.
What You Get with Curve AEO:
- AI Visibility Tracking. See how often your brand appears in AI-generated answers.
- Optimize Your Site for AI. We make technical improvements that help AI assistants find, read, and understand your content.
- Competitive Insights. Understand who's getting recommended instead of you.
- Content Roadmap. Identify gaps and prioritize opportunities to improve performance.
With the managed service, Curve's team sets up your questions, competitors and topics, writes the pages on your roadmap, and makes the technical fixes that help AI assistants read your site. Your clinicians review and approve anything medical before it goes live. If your developer manages your site, Curve's team hands them the exact fixes. Curve's team turns those insights into action: building your strategy, creating and optimizing content, and tracking progress.
In one AI Visibility program we've run, for a HIPAA-focused healthcare software brand, AI assistants named or cited the brand in more than half of their answers to its 40 core buyer questions about five weeks in. Across 184 buyer questions, its site was cited in more AI answers than any competitor's, more than 2.5 times as many as the nearest one.
AI Visibility shows how often AI assistants, including ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini, name and cite your practice for the questions your patients ask. It ties AI answers to the visits and bookings they bring you.
It's built for healthcare: only the marketing question you track is sent to AI assistants, screened for PHI first, and never anything about a patient. Curve is SOC 2 Type II and signs a BAA on every plan. Built for healthcare marketers, Curve connects the entire patient funnel in one platform: paid ads, web analytics, and now AI search. See AI Visibility for the feature.
Sources (checked November 6, 2026): Google, AI Mode in Google Search: Updates from Google I/O 2025 (May 20, 2025); Google, How AI Mode is changing the way people search in the US (May 19, 2026); Google, Search's I/O 2026 updates (May 19, 2026); Google, I/O 2026 opening keynote (May 19, 2026); Google, How Google is using AI to improve health for everyone (March 17, 2026); Google Search Central, AI features and your website; Google Search Central, Optimizing your website for generative AI features; SparkToro, In 2026, Less than One Third of Google Searches Still Send a Click (June 9, 2026); Ahrefs, Are AI Mode and AI Overviews Just Different Versions of the Same Answer? (December 15, 2025); Ahrefs, How Stable Are AI Citations? (October 29, 2026); Ahrefs, Top Brand Visibility Factors in ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews (December 12, 2025); West Health-Gallup, Americans Turning to AI to Supplement Healthcare Visits (April 14, 2026); KFF, Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust (March 26, 2026).
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Google AI Mode?
Google AI Mode is a conversational search mode in Google Search that breaks a question into subtopics, runs many searches at once, and answers with a full AI-powered response and links to supporting websites. Google rolled it out across the US in May 2025.
What runs Google AI Mode?
Google's Gemini models. Since May 2026, Gemini 3.5 Flash is the default model in AI Mode for everyone (Google).
How is AI Mode different from AI Overviews?
AI Mode gives longer, conversational answers built for follow-up questions and comparisons, while AI Overviews are short summaries at the top of regular results. Ahrefs found the two shared only 13.7% of their citations for the same query (Ahrefs).
How do I optimize my practice's website for AI Mode?
Google says there are no additional requirements beyond normal SEO: be indexed and snippet-eligible, then publish clear, clinician-reviewed pages that answer the full question, with your facts in plain text and an up-to-date Business Profile.
Is SEO dead because of AI Mode?
No. Google says SEO best practices stay relevant because its generative AI features "are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems" (Google).
Does AI Mode traffic show up in Search Console?
Yes. Google includes AI Mode in the overall search traffic in Search Console, within the "Web" search type of the Performance report (Google).
Is AI Visibility a Curve feature or a managed service?
Both. AI Visibility is a feature in Curve Compliance, and Curve also offers it as a managed service. In Curve, the feature is called AI Visibility (AEO), and the managed service is Curve AEO.
Talk to Curve Compliance
Want to see how AI Mode answers the questions your patients are asking about care like yours? Book a call to see AI Visibility on your own questions, or to talk about the managed service.