We are excited to share significant updates to Google Search, with the eagerly anticipated ‘AI Mode’ being rolled out in the US, which is designed to provide deeper functionality for longer questions and LLM style prompting. AI mode offers advanced reasoning and the ability to understand information across different formats.
You’ll find it easier to delve into topics with smart follow-up questions and comprehensive overviews that connect you to a wide range of web links. For complex research questions, a new “Deep Search” feature will be able to conduct extensive analysis, essentially performing hundreds of searches to generate expert-level reports on the topic.
We have seen considerable shifts in Google’s bias towards ‘AI Overviews’ appearance in the search engine results pages (SERPs). One 10m query study from Semrush reported 13.4% of all queries triggered AI Overviews in March 2025, up from 6.49% in January 2025.
There are other exciting features in the AI mode roadmap that Google covered in this week’s announcements- Live Visual Interaction: Soon, you’ll be able to use Google Lens to interact with Search in real-time using what you see.
- Help with Tasks: New agentic capabilities are coming, meaning AI Mode will be able to assist with tasks like purchasing tickets or making reservations.
- Smarter Shopping: An AI shopping partner will combine the power of Gemini models with Google’s Shopping Graph for easier product Browse and even virtual try-ons.
- Personalised Insights: Expect more personalised suggestions based on your past searches and connected Google apps.
- Custom Visuals: AI Mode will soon analyse complex datasets and create custom charts and graphs to bring information to life, tailored to your query.
What It Means for Your Business & Digital Marketing Strategy?
Without a doubt, this is a beginning of a new dimension in the world of search. The AI driven patterns seen in Google SERPs sector by sector are very nuanced; ultimately hyperpersonalisation will completely supercede the ‘ten blue links’ original search engine model.
My 3 biggest recommendations on what you should do next are:
- Evolve your search strategy to be ultra brand / reputational focused.
Understand that patterns in search performance aren’t just down to your domain’s performance; clicks out from Google have been gradually declining over the past 5 years. - Track clicks from Bing.com, Chatgpt.com and other large language models. Have an open mind to how you can organically traffic your website.
- Develop a ‘zero click’ mindset to digital marketing. Your website or mobile app can continue to provide impact and grow – but the numbers you’ve historically looked at such as sessions could be the wrong metrics to obsess over.
From a user’s perspective, we all will have to get used to fact checking in the here and now due to the limitations of large language models like Google’s Gemini.
Images courtesy of Google