How to get your business into Google AI Overviews and AI Mode (2026 guide)

What are Google AI Overviews and AI Mode?

AI Overviews are the AI-written summaries at the top of some Google results, with links to the pages they draw on. AI Mode is Google’s separate AI search tab for longer questions and comparisons, where you can ask follow-ups. Both are now part of everyday search: Google said in May 2026 that AI Overviews have more than 2.5 billion monthly users and AI Mode more than 1 billion, in over 200 countries and territories.

Both work the same way underneath. Google describes a “query fan-out”: the AI splits the question into smaller searches across subtopics and data sources, reads what comes back, and writes an answer. AI Mode does more of this, and shows a list of normal links when it isn’t confident in an AI answer.

How does Google choose which businesses to show in AI answers?

With the same systems as normal search. Google’s guide for site owners is direct: to appear, “a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet”, and “there are no additional technical requirements.” Its newer guide adds that optimizing for AI features “is still SEO”.

For a local business, that means three sources of information matter most:

• Your Google Business Profile. Google’s own checklist for AI features says to keep “Business Profile information up-to-date”, and AI Mode uses Google Maps data and the Knowledge Graph for places.
• Your website’s pages, if they’re indexed and say clearly what you do, where and for whom.
• Other sites about you: review sites, directories, local guides and forums that Google can find.

Google hasn’t published how its AI answers rank local businesses. For the map listings themselves it names three factors: relevance, distance and prominence, and says there’s no way to pay for a better local ranking.

What Google’s AI answers cite for local businesses

The best evidence is a BrightLocal study published in August 2026: 60,970 checks of 1,355 business locations in the US, UK and Australia across AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT, with almost 2 million citations.

How often do local searches show an AI Overview?

Less often than headlines suggest, for the searches that bring customers. An Ahrefs study of 146 million result pages (September 2025) found AI Overviews on 20.5% of all searches, but on only 7.9% of local searches. Questions triggered them most.

So the questions your customers ask before they look for a business are where AI Overviews show most. And when one appears, fewer people click: Pew Research found people clicked a normal result on 8% of searches with an AI summary, against 15% without. Being the source the summary cites helps: Seer Interactive found 120% more organic clicks per impression for brands cited in the AI Overview than for those that weren’t (April 2026; a correlation, not proof).

Google isn’t the only AI people ask. In our own AI Visibility Index, ChatGPT named the local business we asked about in only 46% of 959 answers. Most businesses have work to do in both.

How to get your business into AI Overviews and AI Mode: 8 steps

1. 01Make sure Google can show you at all. Your pages must be indexed and allowed a snippet: no noindex or nosnippet on the pages that matter, and Googlebot not blocked. In Search Console, the “Search generative AI” setting (worldwide since August 2026) must leave your site included, which is the default.
2. 02Complete your Google Business Profile, and verify it. The right primary category and extra categories, every service, opening hours (holidays too), service area, photos, attributes like “wheelchair accessible” or “offers online appointments”, and a description in the words customers use.
3. 03Collect recent, detailed reviews, and reply. Google writes AI summaries of a place’s reviews from the past year. Reviews that mention the service and the neighbourhood give it something specific to say. Never buy or fake them.
4. 04Answer the questions customers ask before they choose. Questions trigger AI Overviews most. A page per main service that answers the real questions (price range, how long it takes, what to expect, who it’s for) gives Google first-hand material to quote. Google asks for content “based on what you know about the topic”.
5. 05Say what you do and where, in plain text. Services, city and neighbourhood in headings and the first lines, not only in images, PDFs or menus that need JavaScript.
6. 06Keep your other listings consistent. Yelp, Facebook, Instagram, Apple Maps, Bing Places and the directories of your industry: the same name, address, phone and hours everywhere.
7. 07Add LocalBusiness structured data that matches the page. Google says no special schema is needed for AI features, but structured data that matches your visible text helps it read your facts and still earns rich results. Generate it for free.
8. 08Measure, then check again in a few weeks. Search Console counts AI Overview and AI Mode traffic in the normal Performance report, and since August 2026 has a Generative AI report with impressions per page. Ask AI Mode your customers’ questions yourself too.

What won’t get you into AI Overviews

• An llms.txt file, “AI files” or special markup. Google: “You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown.” What the evidence says about llms.txt.
• A page for every variation of a question. Google warns this can break its spam policy on scaled content.
• Buying or planting mentions. Google lists “inauthentic mentions” as a mistake to avoid.
• Rewriting everything in short “AI-friendly” chunks. Google says there’s no ideal length and no special phrasing needed.
• Blocking Google-Extended, hoping to control AI Overviews. It controls Gemini training and grounding, not whether you appear in Search: Google says it “does not impact a site’s inclusion in Google Search.”

AI Mode now books and calls businesses: what to prepare

In the US, AI Mode can find and book restaurant tables and local services through partners such as OpenTable, Resy and Booksy, and for home repair, beauty and pet care it can call businesses on a customer’s behalf to check prices and availability. Google rolled booking out to everyone in the US in summer 2026.

These calls come from Google to the number on your Business Profile. They’re recorded, and you can turn them off under Business Profile settings, Advanced settings, “Google automated calls and text messages”. If you take bookings online, make sure your booking partner is connected to your profile, so AI Mode can send customers straight to it.

Questions

Sources

1. Google Search Central: AI features and your website
2. Google Search Central: Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search
3. Google: New controls for website owners (June 2026, updated Aug 2026)
4. Google Search Central blog: Generative AI performance reports (June 2026)
5. Google: Search at I/O 2026, AI Overviews and AI Mode users, booking and calls
6. Google Business Profile Help: How Google determines local ranking
7. Google Business Profile Help: Google automated calls
8. Google crawlers: Google-Extended
9. BrightLocal: AI directory sources (Aug 2026), 60,970 checks, 1,355 locations
10. Ahrefs: What triggers AI Overviews (Nov 2025), 146 million result pages
11. Pew Research Center: Google users are less likely to click when an AI summary appears (Jul 2025)
12. Seer Interactive: AI Overviews impact on Google CTR, 2026 update
13. stuckUP: AI Visibility Index, October 2026, our data on ChatGPT