Google AI Overview Links Pushing You To AI Mode Over Web Pages
Google is testing anchor links inside AI Overviews that send users into AI Mode rather than to the web pages they appear to reference. The links sit at the bottom of the AI Overview and are styled like ordinary citations, so a click that looks like a visit to a source instead opens a follow-up conversation in AI Mode.
Gagan Ghotra spotted the test and posted a video of it on X, describing the links as anchors that take users to AI Mode instead of a webpage. He framed it as another step in Google's effort to move people away from standard search results and into its conversational product.
For brands and agencies tracking citations, the change matters because a link in an AI Overview no longer guarantees a click to the site. If the pattern rolls out, referral traffic from AI Overviews could fall further even as a brand's content is used to build the answer, making visibility inside the answer itself the metric that counts.
Reported by Search Engine Roundtable ↗
Topics: AI Overviews, AI Mode, Google Search