Some Links in AI Overviews Now Open AI Mode, Not Your Website

Two posts on September 21 put Google's AI Overview links back on the agenda for SEOs. One suggested Google is sending more traffic out to websites. The other showed a link that kept the user inside Google. Both can be true at once.

The Peec AI chart: more external links in the answer text

Malte Landwehr of Peec AI, an AI search analytics company, shared a chart with the line "Google massively increased the number of external links within AI Overview answers." The chart tracks the daily share of AI Overviews in Peec's sample that contain an external link inside the answer text, from August 25 to September 20, 2026.

The line sits near zero until September 10, jumps around September 11, and reaches 26.2 percent on September 20.

What the chart does not show matters as much:

• It does not say how many queries were sampled, in which markets, or on which devices.
• It does not show how many people clicked those links.
• It measures one link display, inline links in the answer text, not citation cards or the suggestions at the end of an answer.

Landwehr said prompt variation over the period was small. His own reading, which he labeled a guess, is that Google is training users to click links inside AI Overviews.

The recording: an underlined phrase that opens AI Mode

The same day, Gagan Ghotra posted an 18-second recording. He clicks bold, underlined text inside an AI Overview. Instead of a website, it opens a new answer in AI Mode. His on-screen note calls it another tactic to drive users from search results into AI Mode.

The recording shows a single search, so it says nothing about how widespread the element is or whether it replaced an external link.

How Google says AI Overview links work

Google describes several kinds of links inside AI features:

• Links alongside the answer text.
• Suggestions for further reading at the end of an answer.
• Previews of public discussions, linked to the thread and labeled with the community name.
• Labels on links from news sources a user subscribes to.
• On mobile, and since January, a follow-up question that opens a conversation in AI Mode.

Google's changes this year, in order: on January 27 it let users ask follow-ups from an AI Overview into AI Mode; on February 17 it added hover pop-ups of link sets on desktop; on May 6 it announced five link changes including more links next to relevant text; and on June 3 it said it had increased the number of inline links and would keep testing designs. None of those posts gave figures.

How Search Console counts these clicks

This is where site owners should be careful.

A click on an external link in an AI Overview counts as a click. All links in an AI Overview share the same position for impression purposes, and AI Mode follows the same rules.

A follow-up question in AI Mode is a new query. Impressions, position, and clicks for the new answer belong to that new query.

A query refinement is not counted. Google's documentation says a link that runs a new Google search is a query refinement, and its clicks and impressions are not recorded for any site. Google's help pages do not say whether the underlined AI Mode link in Ghotra's recording counts as a refinement.

What the generative AI report can and cannot tell you

Search Console's generative AI performance report rolled out to all sites worldwide on August 31, after a test that began in June with UK sites. It shows impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode, grouped by page, country, date, or device.

It does not show clicks or click-through rate. The data is a subset of the Web search type, so you cannot divide your total Web clicks by AI impressions and call the result an AI click-through rate. The two numbers measure different things.

What to do with this

• Use the generative AI report as a visibility signal. Rising AI impressions for a page tell you Google is using it in answers. They do not tell you the page is earning visits.
• Check your own landing-page data. If AI impressions rise while organic sessions to the same pages stay flat or fall, the answer is likely satisfying the searcher without a click.
• Treat third-party charts as samples. The Peec chart is a useful signal, not a measurement of the whole of Google.