What is AI Mode in Google Search?
Google’s AI Mode — powered by Gemini — is a conversational search experience layered directly into Google Search. Rather than returning a list of ten blue links, AI Mode synthesises answers from multiple sources and presents a single, structured response. Users can follow up conversationally, ask clarifying questions, and drill into specifics without ever clicking through to a website.
This is a fundamental shift in how search works. For two decades, the contract between Google and content creators was simple: create high-quality content, get ranked, receive traffic. AI Mode is renegotiating that contract — and not in publishers’ favour.
How AI Mode is affecting organic traffic
The impact is real but uneven. Informational queries — "how to", "what is", "explain" — are taking the biggest hit. Google can answer these confidently from its training data and web corpus, so users have less reason to click through to individual articles.
Transactional queries — product searches, service searches, local searches — are less affected so far. When someone searches "SEO agency Manchester", they want to evaluate specific agencies, not read a synthesised overview. These high-commercial-intent searches still drive click-through behaviour.
“The sites losing traffic to AI Mode are overwhelmingly those that existed to answer simple informational questions. Sites that give people a reason to exist — communities, tools, transactional services — are holding their ground.”
— Sarah Kim, Head of SEO, Synap GrowthThe zero-click search problem
Zero-click searches aren’t new — Featured Snippets and Knowledge Panels have been answering queries without clicks for years. AI Mode is simply an acceleration of a trend that was already underway. The question isn’t whether zero-click will affect you, but how much and in which query categories.
Run a query-level analysis of your organic traffic. Identify which keyword clusters are primarily informational vs transactional. Informational clusters with falling CTRs are likely being absorbed by AI Mode — redirect resource towards content with commercial intent.
What SEO strategies still work in 2025
Despite the noise, most of what made SEO work before still works now — and in some cases matters more than ever.
- E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) — AI Mode cites sources. Content with genuine expertise, real author credentials, and demonstrable experience is more likely to be cited and to retain brand visibility even in zero-click environments.
- Commercial and transactional content — Service pages, comparison pages, product pages, and local landing pages are largely unaffected by AI Mode because they serve needs that require evaluation, not just information.
- Technical SEO fundamentals — Core Web Vitals, crawlability, schema markup, and site speed remain foundational. A slow, poorly-structured site won’t rank regardless of content quality.
- Digital PR and link building — Backlinks remain a core ranking signal. As content volume increases with AI-generated material, the authority signal of genuine editorial links becomes more differentiating.
- Local SEO — Local search behaviour is largely immune to AI Mode. Proximity, relevance, and prominence in local results remain human-driven decisions.
Where SEO is heading
The SEO practitioners who will thrive in the next five years are those who stop thinking about “ranking” as the end goal and start thinking about being the best answer to the specific questions their customers actually ask. Whether that answer is surfaced via a blue link, an AI summary, a Google Business Profile, or a featured snippet matters less than whether your brand is the one people encounter and trust.
The volume-play of ranking for hundreds of informational keywords with thin content is definitively over. Quality, specificity, and genuine expertise are what’s left standing.