What is AI Mode?
Google announced that as of May 2025, AI Mode would be available to all users in the United States, with plans for a broader international rollout in the coming months. While organic traffic has faced stiff competition from SERP features and sponsored ads, the wider adoption of LLM chat interfaces & AI Overviews has the potential to siphon even more clicks. Unfortunately, this could significantly reduce visibility for brands that rely on siloed-out pages to capture users’ attention.
AI Mode in Google Search is a radically different approach to traditional SERP listings. It contains AI-generated overviews powered by Google’s Gemini models. The output from AI Mode blends generative responses with traditional web links, product listings, and other elements built to engage users in a fully immersive and, in some cases, overwhelming experience.
The evolution of the search landscape, including features like AI Mode, will cause a significant disruption:
- Search results could become AI Summaries rather than the traditional 10 blue links we’ve known since search engines were invented.
- Search will evolve into a post-keyword era, focusing on topical depth and authority rather than ranking individual pages well.
- LLM-powered query expansion will be the foundation for AI Mode’s popularity, answering questions users haven’t thought of before writing a single word.
A common theme here is evolution. When Google rolled out its Penguin and Panda updates over a decade ago, the savviest SEOs adapted by creating more holistic marketing strategies instead of relying on underhanded and outdated tactics (RIP links in blog comments). Yet another watershed moment is on the horizon for the SEO community: we need to think beyond traditional SEO concepts and optimize for discoverability. While SEO’s scope seems to be focused on search engines, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) encompasses LLMs
But without a proper methodology, it’s just another name.
Enter Relevance Engineering, a new framework that blends semantic SEO, topically deep and citation-worthy content architecture, and AI comprehension.