Pichai signals Google AI Mode will gradually replace classic Search

Google is no longer treating AI Mode as a test run. Sundar Pichai described the move from classic Search to AI Mode as a continuum, and said Google can remain fine on a mix of subscriptions and advertising even if the interface changes sharply.

That matters because the search journey is no longer anchored only to the familiar results page. For agencies, the work now extends beyond rankings and click-through rates to answer placement, source inclusion, and the business value created when a user gets what they need inside Google’s own AI surface.

The direction became clearer on May 6, when Google rolled out five updates to AI Mode and AI Overviews aimed at helping users find relevant websites, deeper context, and original reporting. Google said AI Mode would show more links directly in responses, including suggested next steps, inline links, and hover previews on desktop. It also began surfacing links from news subscriptions and added creator attribution for social content. Google said early testing showed searchers were significantly more likely to click links labeled as subscriptions.

Google’s AI Mode product page now says the experience uses Gemini 3’s next-generation intelligence, provides links to explore more on the web, and remains experimental, which means it can still make mistakes. That is an important combination for publishers and agencies alike: Google is trying to preserve source visibility while pushing users into a more conversational, AI-led interface.

Pichai’s comments on May 19 at Google I/O added scale to the shift. He said Google had 13 products with more than a billion users each, and said Search is bringing generative AI to more people than any other product in the world. He also said Google was processing more than 3.2 quadrillion tokens per month across its surfaces, up from 9.7 trillion two years earlier. That kind of growth makes AI Mode look less like an experiment and more like the framework for Google’s next search era.

Publishers have already been bracing for Google Zero as AI search expands, and that pressure now reaches every agency reporting deck. Classic SEO tasks still matter, but they are no longer enough on their own. In Google’s AI-native ecosystem, the agencies that win will be the ones that can prove visibility, citations, and revenue impact even when the click happens inside the answer.