Buckle up folks, the world’s most visited website has announced some major changes that could change the internet as we know it. Google has begun testing a new “AI Mode” in the US that introduces advanced reasoning into Google search in order to produce more nuanced answers to complex questions.
In the announcement of AI mode Google shows a video of an example query being searched, “what’s the difference in sleep tracking features between a smart ring, smartwatch and tracking mat”. It then reveals a multi format answer including an introduction, comparisons of each product and links to various sources. The video also showcases the ability to ask follow up questions to get much more specific information to the user’s individual context.
The experience is similar to using ChatGPT or other LLM tools, but the variety of different content formats and designs does make it feel like an evolution from what we’ve seen from these tools so far.
First of all, AI Mode is not AI Overviews. AI Overviews have been around for about a year. They are the AI powered answers that appear (usually at the top) of a traditional Search Engine Results page (SERP). They appear alongside traditional search engine features such as organic results, sponsored links, People also ask FAQs and local listings. AI Mode is altogether more radical and doesn’t resemble current SERPs at all. The whole page will be created with a custom answer and layout just for you.
Access to Google’s AI Mode is currently limited to users aged 18 and over in the US, requiring a personal Google Account (Google Workspace accounts are not supported). So far there is no news on when it might come to the UK, but AI overviews were released to the UK 3 months after their public launch in the US last year, so it’s possible AI Mode could follow a similar schedule.
The biggest concerns are being raised by publishers about AI using their content without permission. For publishers the content is their product, so this will have a big impact on their business. Other concerns include:
Ultimately it is not in Google’s interest to put publishers out of business, as a lack of new original content is going to harm the output quality of AI mode. But there may be a rocky road ahead while they navigate and adapt to the changing landscape. These changes may encourage publishers to focus more on high-quality original content and discourage some of the SEO content that publishers have relied on for cheap and easy traffic in recent years.
As for other types of websites, retail and service websites are not going to disappear. AI cannot create products or deliver professional services on the fly as of yet, so most commercial queries will still be best served by sending people to the website of a company that can deliver what the customer needs. That doesn’t mean these companies can rest on their laurels and should expect some change in what they need to do to reach new customers.
Obviously we can’t say for certain what SEO for AI Mode will look like when it’s not even been released in the UK, but from what we know about the Large Language Models that AI Mode is based on, and the AI overviews which are already embedded into Google search, we can make some predictions. Mike King from iPullRank has written a great article about what we know about how AI Mode works.
Every time you search in an LLM, the AI follows a reasoning process to work out what kind of answer you are looking for and this involves it asking multiple questions to better understand the context the question was asked within. And this makes sense, as it is how we tend to answer complex questions ourselves. If someone asks me “how do I get more traffic to my website?” I’m instantly thinking about:
Some of these sub-questions or “query fan-outs” as Google has named them can be answered using information I already know about the questioner and others may need to be added as caveats within the answer.
Yes, Google already personalises your search based on things like your location, device and search history, but AI Mode is going to take this much further and will probably be scarily accurate when doing it. The more conversational search becomes, the more personal information we will reveal that can be used by Google to tailor its searches directly to your needs.
Since all Ai Mode answers will be personalised and created at the point of search, if two people search the same query they will get different results, which reference different sources. The format will not be a list of links either, so there will be no universal number 1 ranking. Within this environment it won’t make sense to try and rank a single page for a single keyword. The ability to provide these nuanced personalised answers will also encourage longer, more niche queries, meaning fewer keywords will have a high search volume. Keyword research and most SEO tools will have to adapt to stay useful for this new era of search.
The result of all these features is that you need to provide as much context as possible on your website and answer as many possible questions that your audience may have, to give yourself a good chance at being the best match to as many personalised individual queries as possible.
If you would like to learn more about AI Mode or are ready to speak to a specialist about preparing your website for the new era of search, why not contact withdigital today.
