AI Mode SEO: how to prepare your business for Google’s AI Mode

Google’s AI Mode is a chat-style way to search. A customer asks a long question and keeps asking follow-ups while Google links to websites as it answers.¹ AI Mode SEO is the work of making sure your pages can answer those questions when Google builds a reply.

Here’s an example. Say a customer asks Google who can renovate a small bathroom in the Inner West and what it might cost. Then they ask a follow-up and then another. Each time, Google builds a new reply and can link to different websites.

Our AI SEO agency starts with one important service page and the questions a buyer asks before they call. This guide follows the same order, so you can try it yourself and then check whether anything changed.

What should you do first?

Pick the one service page that matters most to your business and work through these steps this week:

1. Check that Google can reach, store and quote the page. Fix any access problem before you change a single word.
2. List the follow-up questions a buyer asks after the first one. Note which of your pages answers each.
3. Test a fixed list of customer questions in AI Mode and save every answer with the date.
4. Track three things separately: how often Google showed your links, how many people visited and how many enquired.

The sections below explain each step.

What is AI Mode SEO and does it matter in Australia?

AI Mode SEO means improving the pages Google can draw on when it answers a longer, chat-style question. It matters in Australia because Google launched AI Mode in English here on 8 October 2025.¹

Definition: Google AI Mode is the chat-style part of Google Search. Someone asks a question, reads an answer that the AI wrote and asks follow-ups to go deeper.² Behind the scenes, Google breaks the question into smaller topics and runs related searches for the person. It calls this query fan-out.¹

A customer gets to AI Mode by going to google.com/ai or by typing a question into the Search bar and tapping AI Mode.² Google says it suits queries that need further exploration, reasoning or complex comparisons.³ In other words, bigger questions than a quick search. Hiring a tradie, choosing a clinic or comparing builders are all that kind of question. Linking Google’s description to buying decisions is our own reading and not something Google says.

The wider job of getting your business shown in AI-written answers has a name, generative engine optimisation (GEO). Our guide on what is GEO covers that practice across different tools. This page sticks to Google’s AI Mode.

How is AI Mode different from AI Overviews?

AI Mode is a chat that a customer chooses to start. An AI Overview is a short summary that appears inside an ordinary search. For a site owner they share the same Google technical requirements, the same setting and the same report. The report is in Search Console, Google’s free tool for site owners.

In AI Mode a customer can keep going with follow-up questions in the same conversation.² Think about that journey when you decide which comparisons, limits and practical details your pages need to answer. Our AI Overviews guide covers the summaries shown inside ordinary Search.

What does Google say you need to appear in AI Mode?

Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode have no extra requirements or special optimisations.³ The standard Search requirements still apply. Google has to have stored the page for search, which is called indexing. The page has to be allowed to show with a short text excerpt, called a snippet. The site also has to be included in Google’s generative AI features in Search. Meeting these conditions doesn’t guarantee that Google will show the page.⁴

You don’t need to add any of these three things:

• A special AI file. Google says you don’t need extra machine-readable files or special text formats to appear in its search features. It also ignores llms.txt, a proposed file meant to guide AI tools.⁴ Our llms.txt guide explains the file’s other uses.
• Special page labels for software. This code, called structured data or schema markup, labels the facts on a page for machines to read. Google says it isn’t required for generative AI search and that no special version is needed.⁴ Our guide to schema markup for AI explains its other uses.
• Content cut into tiny pieces. Google says there is no requirement to break content up for AI and no ideal page length.⁴

So AI Mode SEO is mostly ordinary SEO aimed at the questions a customer asks next. The next section shows how to find those questions.

Which customer questions should your pages answer?

Your pages should answer the follow-up questions a buyer asks after the first one, because AI Mode answers by running several related searches.¹ Google describes this as issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources.³

Here’s an example of one journey, for a bathroom renovator. Each row is a question the customer might ask next, with the page that should answer it.

Map each follow-up to the best page you already have. Our view is that one strong page with real details beats a new thin page for every wording of a question. Add a page only when a real customer question has no honest home. The picture below puts the same five questions side by side, each pointing to the page or section that should answer it.

Give each follow-up a home

Planning example · Not tested in AI Mode

1

Who can renovate a small bathroom in Marrickville?

↓

Service page + suburbs

2

What does a renovation involve and how long does it take?

↓

Process section

3

Can they work with a tight layout?

↓

Project page + constraint

4

Roughly what will it cost?

↓

Price guide + cost factors

5

How do I ask for a quote?

↓

Quote link or form

Use the best page you already have.

What should you check before rewriting a page?

Check that Google can reach, store and quote the page before you change any words. These are checks and not instructions to change a setting.

1. Stored pages. Use Search Console’s URL Inspection tool to check whether Google has stored the page for search, which is called indexing.⁴
2. Display limits. Instructions on a page can stop Google storing it for search (noindex), stop a text excerpt (nosnippet) or limit how long that excerpt can be (max-snippet). Ask your developer whether these controls affect the page you want shown.³
3. The site-owner setting. In Search Console, open Settings, then Search generative AI. Include is the default. A child property such as a subdomain follows its parent unless you override it.⁵ Choosing Exclude removes your content from these features and the traffic that comes with them.⁵ Leave the setting alone unless you want to opt out.
4. Googlebot access. Googlebot is Google’s page reader, known as a crawler. It obeys the robots.txt access file when it crawls automatically.⁸ Your host’s security settings can still block it, so ask your developer to check. Our guide to AI crawlers and robots.txt covers the other assistants.
5. Visible answer. Read the first two sentences of the page aloud as if a customer had asked. If they don’t answer the question, fix that first.

Google says these controls can take time to work after it revisits the page, so check again later and avoid changing several things at once.³

What proof makes a service page worth using?

A service page is worth using when it shows real work and not just claims. Say what you do, where you do it, how a job runs and what changes the price. Add one dated project with its place and your role.

Kavera note: We checked 50 questions across 10 Sydney trades in the Sydney trades AI search study. Google AI Mode completed 49 of the 50. Of those 49 answers, 36 linked to a business or other website, 8 to a government site and 2 to a directory. Those are links we saw in saved answers on 16 and 17 October 2026. They aren’t a ranking factor.

The study counted links in answers, so it shows which kinds of page Google chose to show on those days. It can’t tell you why. Our reading is that a clear page on your own website gives AI Mode something to link to. Fixing a wrong directory listing matters too.

Keep each result with the platform it came from. In two checks about two months apart, our client SHORE went from absent to first in one Sydney builder shortlist. That was in ChatGPT, as our ChatGPT SEO guide explains, so it isn’t an AI Mode result. A result on one platform can’t prove another.

How can you test AI Mode without trusting one answer?

Use a fixed question list, the same settings each time and a saved copy of every answer. One answer proves little, because answers differ between people, places and days.

1. Write 10 to 20 questions a real customer would ask, with the service, the suburb and the decision.
2. Run each in AI Mode. Save the full answer, the links, the date and the location Google shows.
3. Ask a second person in another suburb to repeat it.
4. Mark each answer: your business named, your website linked, both or neither.
5. Mark any answer that failed to load as unavailable. Don’t count it as absent.

Kavera note: For our Sydney trades study, we fixed a list of 50 questions covering 10 trades. We kept checks that were blocked, failed or got no answer separate from checks where a business was absent. Each question was asked once, with no follow-ups. That means it measures first answers only, so use a separate saved sequence when you test a conversation.

A simple worksheet needs these columns: question, follow-up, the customer’s decision, current page, evidence missing, date and location, named in the answer, linked page and outcome. Our guide to measuring AI visibility turns the worksheet into a monthly routine.

How do you measure impressions, visits and enquiries?

Measure three things separately: how often Google showed your links, how many people visited and how many enquired. No single report covers all three. Search Console shows the first. Google Analytics (the tool that counts visits to your website) shows the second. Your own phone and form records show the third.

Google Analytics sorts visits into groups called channels. It puts visits from AI Mode and AI Overviews in Organic Search and not in its AI Assistant channel.⁷ Our guide on how to track AI traffic in GA4 shows what you can and can’t separate.

Google rolled the Search Console report out to all websites worldwide by 31 August 2026.⁶ The fine print further down covers its other limits.

What does AI Mode mean for a local service business?

A local business can appear in an AI Mode shortlist. Being mentioned and having your own website linked are different results. In our Sydney trades study, AI Mode linked to a Google business or map record in 2 of 49 completed answers. It linked to a business or other website in 36 of them. That second group doesn’t tell us how often the recommended business’s own site was linked.

That is one sample of trade questions, so use it as a prompt to check your own answers and not as a rule. Two actions follow from it. Make the service page for each suburb you serve say something true and specific about that suburb. Keep your Google Business Profile, directory listings and website consistent on services, areas and contact details. Our Local SEO service covers the profile and suburb work together.

Kavera note: In our Sydney trades study, ChatGPT and Google AI Mode shared a business name for 20 of 49 questions with completed answers from both. Google AI Mode and AI Overviews shared one for 35 of 47. Check each one separately, because these were different saved answers.

What should you watch for when someone sells AI Mode work?

Be wary of anyone who guarantees a place in AI Mode. Google says outside tools can’t reach its internal ranking or AI systems.⁴ A tool can record the answers and links it sees. Those records don’t reveal Google’s internal decisions or secure a future placement.

Ask any provider for four things: the questions they will test, the saved answers, the page changes they will make and which report will show progress. A good answer names the Search Console report and a way to count enquiries. A poor answer names a score nobody can check.

What is the fine print on these numbers?

About the bathroom journey: it is a planning example. We haven’t run those questions in AI Mode.

About the Search Console report: it can sort data by page, country, date and device. It leaves out Search Labs experiments and records dates in Pacific Time. It may not appear at all until a site has enough impressions in these features.⁶

Can we help you check your pages for AI Mode?

If you would like a second pair of eyes, our AI SEO agency can run the check with you. Our SEO audit is free. It reviews your technical setup, keywords, competitors and Google Business Profile, then gives you a prioritised roadmap. Implementation is separate unless retained. Monthly plans start at Suburb SEO, $890/month + GST. See the SEO packages for scope and terms. No SEO package guarantees rankings, leads or revenue.