Google AI Overviews update boosts links, next-step discovery for brands

Google is trying to turn its AI answers from a dead end into a doorway. The company’s May 6 update to AI Mode and AI Overviews adds five new ways to explore the web, including suggestions for where to go next at the end of many responses and a new feature that highlights links from users’ news subscriptions.

The shift matters because Google is no longer just deciding which facts appear inside the answer box. It is also deciding which destinations deserve the next click. Google said the new setup is designed to help people find relevant websites, deep insights and original content across the web, while making AI Search better at connecting users with authentic voices and useful information.

The link treatment itself is getting more assertive. Google said its new presentation shows more descriptive and prominent link icons on desktop and mobile, and it added hover pop-up link cards on desktop so users can see more about a site before clicking. The company said testing found the design was more engaging and made it easier to get to content across the web. For brands, that is a meaningful change: being cited in an AI answer still matters, but the page now has to earn the next step as well.

This is not Google’s first attempt to make AI search more click-friendly. In April 2025, it began adding links to some terms inside AI Overviews when those links would help people explore topics and discover relevant websites. In February 2026, it rolled out more visible hover link cards in AI Overviews and AI Mode on desktop. The new May update goes further by placing more of that discovery layer directly inside the AI response itself.

Google has also been pushing AI search harder overall. It said AI Overviews drove more than a 10% increase in Google usage for the query types that show the summaries in its biggest markets, including the United States and India. AI Mode, which Google opened to all U.S. searchers in May 2025, has been positioned as a deeper search experience built around follow-up questions and web links.

For SEOs and publishers, the new benchmark is not just citation frequency. The bigger questions are whether those citations lead to real clicks, whether users refine the query after the answer, and whether the linked pages differ from the traditional top-ranking results. If Google is solving the answer dead-end problem, the next test is whether it restores publisher visibility or simply keeps users moving inside Google for longer.