How Will Google's AI Mode Affect Your Brand's Visibility?

What changed in Google's AI Overviews this week?

On September 21, 2026, marketer Gagan Ghotra posted screenshots and a screen recording showing something new inside AI Overviews: anchor text that read like a normal citation but, when clicked, opened AI Mode instead of a publisher's page. Search Engine Roundtable confirmed the test the next day, and coverage from Search Engine Land followed the same rollout.

The anchor sits inside the generated answer text itself, not in the separate row of source cards underneath it. That distinction matters more than it sounds. A source card has always pointed straight to the page Google is citing. This new anchor type carries the reader's original query into AI Mode and opens a follow-up conversation there instead. The click still happens. It just does not leave Google.

How do the new AI Mode anchor links actually work?

The mechanic is simple once you see it. Google generates the AI Overview as usual, weaves a phrase into the answer that reads like an inline citation, and wires that phrase to an AI Mode session rather than a URL. The query context carries over, so the reader lands on a follow-up answer instead of your homepage or blog post.

This test is not happening in isolation. Search Engine Journal reported that Peec AI tracked a related but separate shift: the share of AI Overviews carrying any inline external link in the answer text rose from near zero before September 10, 2026, to 26.2% by September 20, 2026. Google is adding more links inside its answers overall, and at least some of those links now dead-end inside Google's own product instead of on the open web.

Nobody outside Google has confirmed how these AI Mode hand-offs get logged in Search Console. Search Engine Journal flagged that possibility directly: a click that opens AI Mode may register as a query refinement rather than a click or an impression, which would make the drop-off invisible in the reporting most sites already rely on.

Who does this affect?

Anyone chasing visibility inside an AI Overview is affected, but the businesses that feel it fastest are the ones already treating a citation as a proxy for traffic. B2B SaaS teams competing for 'best [category] tool' prompts and local or service businesses trying to show up for '[service] in [city]' prompts both built their reporting around the same assumption: a mention leads to a visit.

That assumption now has a hole in it. A brand can be named accurately, favorably, and prominently inside an AI Overview and still send zero visitors, because the reader never left Google's interface. Citation share, the percentage of relevant AI answers that cite you, becomes a more honest measure of standing than click-through, because it counts the mention even when Google keeps the visit for itself.

Is this a preview of AI Mode becoming the default?

Ghotra called it 'another tactic' from Google to push search traffic toward AI Mode, and the framing fits a pattern rather than a one-off experiment. Google has spent much of 2026 rearranging where links live inside AI Overviews, adding them in some releases and repositioning them in others. This is the first confirmed case of a subset of those links replacing a webpage destination with a path back into Google's own product.

None of the outlets that confirmed the test could say how widely it is rolling out, or whether it survives past the testing phase. Google changes its result pages constantly, and most tests never reach every user. What is notable here is not the size of the test. It is the direction: fewer paths off Google, not more.

How should brands respond?

You cannot opt out of a test Google controls, but you can stop measuring your visibility with a single metric that this test just made unreliable.

1. Track citation share alongside clicks, not instead of clicks, so a strong showing in AI Overviews still counts even when the visit does not.
2. Check Search Console for unexplained query refinement activity around your branded and category terms, since that is where an AI Mode hand-off would most likely surface first.
3. Write content that answers the follow-up question an AI Mode session would ask next, because a reader who lands there is still one exchange away from your answer being the best one available.
4. Widen the lens past Google. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini do not run AI Mode, and a citation there still tends to carry a link that leaves the platform.

What should you watch next?

A few signals will tell you whether this test matters for your traffic, and not just for search marketing forums.

1. Whether Search Engine Land, Search Engine Roundtable, or Google itself confirms a wider rollout beyond the initial test group.
2. Whether Search Console adds a distinct label for AI Mode hand-off clicks, which would resolve the reporting gap Search Engine Journal flagged.
3. Whether the 26.2% inline-link share keeps climbing, which would suggest Google is comfortable putting more links, of any kind, inside the answer text.
4. Whether competitors in your category start showing up inside AI Mode follow-up conversations instead of on the source card row beneath the answer.

Does this change what counts as a citation?

Not yet, and that is worth saying plainly. Being named inside an AI Overview still means the model trusted your content enough to surface it, and that trust is what Omnicite tracks as citation share across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. What changes is the value of a Google citation specifically, which can no longer be assumed to convert into a visit the way it did before September 21, 2026.

That is a reason to broaden your measurement, not to abandon the work. A citation that never sends a click still shapes whether the next reader who asks the same question gets your name or a competitor's.

Sources

Source: Search Engine Land

Google is testing anchor links inside AI Overviews that open AI Mode instead of a publisher page Search Engine Land, 2026-09-21

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Search Engine Roundtable confirmed the AI Mode anchor link test and traced its first sighting to Gagan Ghotra on September 21, 2026 Search Engine Roundtable, 2026-09-22

Source: Search Engine Journal

The share of AI Overviews carrying an inline external link rose from near zero before September 10, 2026 to 26.2% by September 20, 2026 Search Engine Journal, 2026-09-25

Source: X (Gagan Ghotra)

Marketer Gagan Ghotra first posted screenshots and video of the AI Mode anchor link test X (Gagan Ghotra), 2026-09-21