What is Google AI Mode?
Updated By Akkrev
What is Google AI Mode? Learn how to open it, how it differs from AI Overviews and Gemini, and what hotel and restaurant owners should check.
Google AI Mode is a conversational search experience in Google Search. It uses Gemini models to answer questions, link to web sources and handle follow-up questions. A traveller can describe a trip, compare options and refine the same search rather than starting again.
How to open AI Mode
Open Google AI Mode, or select the AI Mode tab in Google Search. The Google app also provides an AI Mode entry point where available. Features and access can vary by account and location; Google’s help page lists current requirements.
AI Mode vs AI Overviews vs Gemini
| Experience | Where you use it | Main difference |
|---|---|---|
| AI Mode | Google Search | A conversation built around a search question and follow-ups |
| AI Overviews | Google search results | An AI summary that may appear alongside other results |
| Gemini | Google’s assistant app or website | A separate assistant with its own tools and conversation context |
These experiences can return different answers. A Gemini API sample is not a measurement of what appeared in AI Mode.
What a hospitality owner can check
Try a guest question such as “quiet independent hotel in Bath with parking” or “restaurant in Islington with vegan options for a birthday”. Then inspect three things:
- Recommendation: which venues are named, and which needs the answer says they meet.
- Accuracy: whether the parking, menu, opening hours and booking details match current published facts.
- Sources: which pages are linked, and whether a guest can reach the venue’s own website.
Save the question, date, answer and source links. Repeat under comparable conditions. Your own example is an observation, not evidence of what every guest sees.
How to make your website eligible
Google’s guidance retains the fundamentals: allow crawling, make useful content indexable and keep structured data consistent with the visible page. There is no special AI schema or required llms.txt file for Google’s AI features. Eligibility does not guarantee a citation.
For practical venue checks, use our hotel checklist or restaurant checklist. These cover the information guests need before they choose.
Does Akkrev track Google AI Mode?
Akkrev’s included weekly reports sample four API model families. They do not directly track Google AI Mode or AI Overviews. Read the measurement method before comparing that score with Google’s own search reporting. For the broader work of getting a venue found, start with AI SEO for hospitality.
In Search Console, Google’s Generative AI features report shows impressions for AI Mode and AI Overviews. Those observations are separate from an API visibility score. See how to measure AI SEO for a reporting method that keeps impressions, visits and bookings distinct.