Google pushes inline links higher in AI Mode and AI Overviews
Google announced on October 15 a set of updates to its AI-powered Search experiences, aimed at making source links easier to find. Inline links will now appear higher up in AI Mode and AI Overviews responses more frequently, and the links at the end of AI answers get a more clickable design with image thumbnails. Carousels for developing topics and Preferred Sources are expanding to more regions and languages after launching earlier this year, with Google saying Preferred Sources usage has grown 7x since then. Google is also testing a dedicated section at the top of AI responses showing the "one or two official places" to complete a task with context on why each link is useful, plus clickable creator and publisher names on video results that lead to their Search profiles. One report says publishers in the News AI pilot now exceed 400, with Axios, CNN and the Financial Times among recent additions.
AI search has been accused of draining publisher traffic, so Google surfacing links more prominently is an attempt to rebalance user experience with the health of the content ecosystem.