What Is AI Powered Search? A Complete Guide for 2025

Welcome to the AI Search Era

The rules have been rewritten, the times are changing and it’s now time for people adapt. If you’re a content writer, or a SEO professional, or if you have your own brand or if you’re a publisher, or if you’re a general reader who loves tech this article is for you. What exactly has changed? With the launch of Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) and AI Mode, the way people are searching is changing. If your query starts with “who”, “what” or “how” , the probability of it being answered with a concise AI-generated summary is high. Gone are the days where you would find a familiar list of links first.

If you can get your answers instantly, why scroll through 10 links and then select a website? And this has become the problem for those who depend on organic traffic. Check out this blog post that talks about the evolution of GEO from SEO, and about AI Search Optimization if you want to know more. Furthermore, this change is not just an update to search, but marks a structural change in the way information is discovered, consumed, and attributed.

Rollout Timeline: How We Got Here

In the ending of 2023, Google actually began testing AI Overviews in Search Labs. Let’s see what has happened since then.

What is the key shift? AI Mode is shifting from an optional feature to the default experience for many users.

Google’s Positioning & Strategic Intent

Google has made it’s message clear- it wants to do the searching for you. According to Google Search VP Liz Reid:

“AI Overviews are designed to help you get a jumpstart on your search journey- so you can quickly understand a topic and then explore further.”

Google aims to:

• Reduce the need for multiple searches, by providing an instant AI generated answer.
• Increase trust in Google’s own AI answers, by providing correct citations and sources in the answer generated.
• Keep users within Google’s ecosystem longer.

Furthermore, as the competition has been increased from platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity and other AI tools, Google is not ready to back down. It is stepping up to fight back in this competition.

What Are AI Overviews and AI Mode?

AI Overview (AIO)

• It summarizes answers directly at the top of the search page.
• It cites sources often from UGC like Reddit, YouTube.
• It is most ideal for queries that are informational in nature.

AI Mode

• It’s a conversational and interactive search.
• You can ask it follow up questions or to give you better answers.
• It will show product results for transactional intent.

Feature Comparison Table

The Two New Search User Types

With these new changes, Google’s AI has effectively created two distinct search personas:

1. The Satisfied Skimmer

• The one who relies on AI generated answers and has completely stopped searching.
• His/her journey ends after typing on the search bar, and they never click on a website.

2. The High-Intent Investigator

• Uses AI generated answer as the starting point.
• After which they dive deeper into the cited sources.

Engagement impact (from multiple research reports) :

• +8% increase in average time spent on site.
• +12% more pages viewed per session.
• -23% reduction in bounce rate.

The Risks: Hallucinations, Bias, and Wrong Answers

AI Hallucinations are real. There have been multiple real cases that have revealed the dark side of ChatGPT hallucinations. The problem usually arises when we ask chatbots questions from niche topics that they probably are not too familiar with. In these questions they fabricate answers and give wrong answers. Moreover, sometimes when the AI models are asked for citations, they generate links that don’t even exist. So remember while AIOs and AI Mode are designed to be helpful, they can be wrong.

But why does this happen? The reason behind this is twofold- AI often favors user-generated content like Reddit or YouTube and secondly- UGC can have content that has bias, is out of date, or factually incorrect.

AIO & AI Mode Survival Checklist

In order to relevant and visible, you must focus on:

1. Create “Un-Summarizable” Content

• Original research, proprietary data, unique opinions.
• In-depth case studies and industry reports.

2. Adopt AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)

• Use clear hierarchical headings, FAQ sections, schema markup
• Write concise, fact-rich paragraphs AI can lift directly, AI models prefer structured data that can be easily retrievable and understood.

3. Use Expert Authority

• Make sure you include opinions and quotes from experts as well as insights from subject matter experts.
• When you list credentials, it increases credibility.

4. Monitor Your Citations

• Ensure you keep a track of pages that AIO results cite.
• And adjust those pages for clarity and completeness.

Wrapping Up

This technological shift has made it clear that AI Overviews and AI Mode aren’t going to be temporary features. They are the new default direction of Google Search.

What this means:

• Clicks will be fewer, but higher quality.
• Citations are now going to matter more than rankings.
• Owning unique, authoritative content is going to be your biggest asset.

Additionally, your job as a as a creator, publisher, or brand is to make your content matter and more visible. For that you need to understand how LLMs work, and make sure your content meets the above checklist to ensure that your content stays relevant even if the AI tries to summarize it.