When you search for something on Google, you may now see an AI-written summary above the list of results. Or you can switch to AI Mode, ask questions as if in a conversation and continue with follow-up questions. In Turkey, these two features started rolling out gradually on February 18, 2026. In this article, we explain what the two are, what Google says for sites and what brands should pay attention to.
What are AI Mode and AI Overviews?
According to Google's announcement for Turkey, the two features do different jobs:
- AI Overviews: For searches where AI is especially helpful, it shows a short summary at the top of the results page that gives the core of the topic. The summary includes source links.
- AI Mode: A deeper search experience. It offers advanced reasoning, a multimodal setup and the option to go deeper with follow-up questions. You can ask by text, by voice or with a photo taken with the camera.
According to the announcement, both features are powered by the Gemini 3 model family. In Turkey, they are rolling out gradually in the Google app on Android and iOS and on the search results page.
Google's developer documentation makes a similar distinction. AI Overviews help you quickly get to the core of a complex topic. AI Mode suits questions that need more research, reasoning or complex comparisons.
How does AI Mode build its answer?
In both features, Google uses a method it calls "query fan-out". According to the announcement for Turkey, the question is split into subtopics and many queries are run on the web at the same time. The answer is built using the pages found in these queries.
For a brand, this means one buyer question can turn into several different searches in the background. It becomes more important for your site to give a good answer not only for the main search term but also for the subtopics of that question. For example, the question "Which company should I choose for service X?" can split into subtopics such as price, time, city and comparison.
What does Google ask of your site so it can appear?
Google is clear on this. According to the developer documentation, to be shown as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed in Google and eligible to be shown with a snippet in search results. The documentation says there is no additional technical requirement beyond this. But meeting the requirements does not mean the page will be shown. Google does not guarantee it.
Google also states clearly that you do not need to create a new machine-readable file, an AI text file or special markup for these features. Google's guide for AI features goes one step further: it says optimizing for AI search is optimizing for the search experience, in other words, it is still SEO. According to the guide, you do not need to add special schema.org markup or use a separate writing style for AI. What it recommends is original, helpful, reliable content written for people.
So if you are wondering whether files like llms.txt do anything in Google, see our article Is llms.txt necessary?
Can you limit how your pages are used?
Yes. According to Google, the settings that control search snippets also control AI features. You can limit how your page is used in these features with robots meta tags such as nosnippet, data-nosnippet and max-snippet, or with noindex.
You need to be careful here. These settings also affect how you appear in regular search results.
Search Console also has a separate setting just for AI features in search. According to the Search Console help page, this setting lets you remove your site's links and content from these features. The change usually takes a few days to take effect. If you remove your site, content from other sites continues to be shown in these features.
The Google-Extended setting is a different matter. According to Google, this setting controls whether your content is used to train future Gemini models. It does not affect inclusion in Google Search.
What can you do to become a source in AI Overviews?
Google does not recommend a special method, but the basic recommendations in its guide can be turned into concrete steps:
- Check in Search Console that your pages are indexed. A page that is not in the index does not appear in these features either.
- Check whether important pages have a restriction such as nosnippet.
- Make the questions buyers ask into subheadings, and write a short, clear answer under each.
- Answer the subtopics of a question (price, time, region, comparison) in separate sections.
- Instead of repeating general information that is also on other sites, put forward original information from your own experience.
Where can you see AI Mode traffic?
According to Google's documentation, traffic to sites that appear in AI features is included in the overall search traffic in Search Console. It is counted under the "Web" search type in the Performance report.
In addition, Search Console has a separate generative AI performance report. According to Google's help page, this report gives your impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode. It offers breakdowns by page, country, date and device. Google writes that it opened the report to all sites worldwide as of August 31, 2026. If your site has not received enough impressions in these features, the report may not appear.
This report tells you how many times links to your site were shown. It does not show which brands are mentioned in the answer. To see that, the most direct way today is to ask your own questions in AI Mode by hand and note the answers.
What has changed for brands?
The picture from Google's documentation can be summed up like this:
- The basics have not changed. Being indexed, being eligible for snippets and good SEO are still required.
- The way questions are asked has widened. AI Mode is open to follow-up questions, comparisons, and questions asked by voice or with a photo.
- Subtopics matter more. Because of query fan-out, it has become more valuable for your site to answer different sides of a question.
- Source links are in the summary. A buyer can come straight to your site from a link inside the answer. That is why being shown as a source in the summary matters.
- Ads stay in place. According to Google's announcement for Turkey, ads continue to be shown in their own spaces above and below AI Overviews panels.
Does AIShortlist measure AI Mode?
No. To be clear: AIShortlist does not measure Google AI Mode or AI Overviews today. The engines we measure are ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.
Measuring Gemini does not replace measuring AI Mode. Although both are Google products, they are separate products. Their answers, the sources they read and the way they display results can differ.
If you want to see where you stand in AI Mode, our recommendation for now is to ask a few questions your buyers would ask in AI Mode by hand and note which brands and which sources come up in the answers. Do not decide based on a single try, because answers vary. We explain how to do this regularly in the article How do you measure AI visibility?
If you want to measure ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, you can run a measurement for 1 brand and 10 questions with the free trial. No card details are required.