What is Google AI Mode?

AI Mode lets people ask longer questions and keep going with follow-ups instead of starting a new search each time. At Google I/O on May 19, 2026, Google said AI Mode had surpassed one billion monthly users a year after its debut and made Gemini 3.5 Flash its default model. It also expanded agentic booking in Search to local experiences and services, and for select categories such as home repair, beauty, and pet care, people can ask Google to call businesses on their behalf. Google said those features would reach everyone in the U.S. in summer 2026.

For site owners, eligibility works the same way as for AI Overviews: crawlable, indexable, helpful pages, with structured data that matches what the page shows. The difference is in how people use it. Conversations run several turns, so a site can be cited at any step, and some local businesses can now be found, compared, and booked without a traditional search at all.