Google AI Mode SEO: What Actually Works? An Interview with Anshul Rana

Q1: For those just catching up, what exactly is Google AI Mode?

Anshul Rana: Google AI Mode is Google’s generative AI search experience. It sits at the top of the search results and synthesizes information from multiple sources to give users a direct, conversational answer. Instead of ten blue links, users get an AI-generated summary with cited sources underneath.

It’s essentially Google’s answer to ChatGPT’s conversational model, but built into the search interface that billions of people already use daily. The AI digital marketing updates from May 2026 paint a clear picture: AI Mode hit 1 billion users, and Google rebuilt Search around AI at Google I/O. This isn’t a test anymore—it’s the new reality.

Q2: How is AI Mode different from AI Overviews? Aren’t they the same thing?

Anshul Rana: Great question—and a lot of SEOs get this confused. AI Overviews are the shorter AI-generated summaries that appear for informational queries. AI Mode is a deeper, more conversational interface that you can follow up on, drill down into, and get multi-step answers from. Think of AI Overviews as a quick-answer layer and AI Modes as a full conversation with Google.

The optimization principles overlap significantly with GEO Generative Engine Optimization, but AI Mode has some unique characteristics because it’s deeply integrated with Google’s knowledge graph and entity understanding. It also understands search intent at a fundamentally different level than keyword-based ranking did.

Q3: What types of content is Google AI Mode actually citing?

Anshul Rana: From what I’ve seen across client accounts and my own testing, AI mode tends to favor the following:

• Authoritative, expert-driven content. First-hand experience and demonstrable expertise win. Generic AI-generated filler is being actively deprioritized.
• Structured content with clear answers. Pages that can be easily extracted and quoted. If your paragraphs are dense and meandering, AI Mode skips you.
• Schema-rich pages. Structured data makes your content machine-readable in a way that AI systems love.
• High-trust domains. Brand mentions, citations, and entity associations matter enormously. This ties back to how LLMs read brand signals; it’s about co-occurrence in trusted contexts, not just link authority.

Q4: Is traditional on-page SEO still relevant for AI Mode?

Anshul Rana: Yes—but the emphasis has shifted. Title tags, meta descriptions, and headers still matter because they’re part of how Google understands page structure. But what AI Mode cares about most is whether your page contains a genuinely useful, extractable answer.

The technical SEO foundation still needs to be solid—site speed, crawlability, and Core Web Vitals. But layered on top of that, you need LLM-visibility optimization, ensuring your content structure, entity signals, and schema markup are calibrated for AI extraction, not just human reading.

Q5: What about local businesses? Can they compete in AI Mode?

Anshul Rana: Local businesses actually have a strong opportunity here. AI Mode pulls heavily from Google’s own data ecosystem—Google Business Profile, reviews, and local entity data. A local business with a well-optimized GBP, consistent NAP data, structured local schema, and genuine reviews is in a strong position.

I work across industries, from healthcare and wellness to home services and local businesses, and in every vertical, the pattern is the same: local trust signals translate directly into AI mode visibility.

Q6: What’s the biggest mistake you see brands making with AI mode optimization?

Anshul Rana: Treating it like old-school SEO writing content to rank for keywords rather than to answer questions. AI Mode is fundamentally intent-driven. The brands succeeding right now are the ones that deeply understand what their audience needs, structure their content around those needs, and back it with entity authority.

The second big mistake is ignoring the audit process. I always recommend starting with a thorough Answer Engine Readiness audit before creating new content. Most sites have existing content that’s 70% of the way there; they need structural adjustments to become AI-mode-ready.

Q7: Can you share any quick wins someone can implement this week?

Anshul Rana: Absolutely. Here are three things you can do right now:

1. Add an FAQ section to your top pages. Use real questions your customers ask. Mark them up with the FAQ schema. This is the single fastest path to AI mode citations.
2. Create a clear “What is X?” definition for your core service or product. AI Mode loves definitional, educational content from authoritative sources.
3. Check your Bing indexing. ChatGPT and parts of Google’s AI ecosystem rely on Bing’s index. If Bing hasn’t crawled your latest content, you’re invisible in a large chunk of AI search.

Q8: Where do you see Google AI Mode evolving over the next 12 months?

Anshul Rana: The personalization layer is going to deepen significantly. AI Mode will get better at understanding who is asking, their context, location, and history, and tailoring responses accordingly. That means local SEO, SaaS, and technology content and industry-specific expertise will become even more valuable than generic “SEO content.”

The brands that are building genuine topical authority, maintaining consistent entity signals, and publishing original expert content right now will be the ones dominating AI Mode by Q1 2027. The window to get ahead of this is right now.