Google Search Is sometimes Ai-First — What That Means for Your Brand
Google just replaced “AI Overviews” with AI Mode — and for many searches, it’s now the default experience. Instead of ten blue links, users see an AI-generated answer with sources and actions. For brands, that means visibility doesn’t guarantee clicks. Here’s what it means for your strategy.
Google Search Just Changed - Here’s What It Means for You
Google has rolled out a major update to its AI Overviews in the US, now renamed “AI Mode”, marking a new phase of the AI platform shift. This experience will automatically activate when Google detects complex queries.
Instead of ten blue links, users now get a synthesised AI-generated response - with cited sources and actions like "Add to Sheets" - right at the top of the results page.
The default experience for many searches is no longer traditional search. About 1.5 billion people now regularly engage with “AI Overviews”, according to Google, and most users are now entering longer and more complex queries.
It’s AI-first, and it’s changing how people discover, compare, and decide.
For brands, this means:
🔍 Your web page might not be clicked, even if it’s cited.
🔍 Product comparisons and reviews could be summarised by AI - not by your content.
🔍 The visibility you worked hard for in classic SEO may not translate to visibility in AI Overviews.What should you do about it?At RankBee, we’re tracking and analysing how AI models like Gemini and ChatGPT mention and recommend brands - because that’s where customer attention is going.
Here’s what we recommend:
💡 Audit how your brand appears in AI Overviews and LLM-generated content.
💡 Optimise for generative engines, not just search engines.
💡 Track attribution loss: Are you getting cited but not clicked?
💡 Invest in brand authority and structured content that LLMs can trust and reuse.
🐝 How often is your brand part of the conversation, but not part of the click?
