Following the launch of Google’s AI mode on Tuesday, 20th May, the game has changed. In some ways, it feels like everything Google has been doing since its inception, particularly around personal data collection, is culminating in the most powerful form of AI search yet – AI Mode.
AI mode is a hyper-personalised form of Search that means the results your customers are being served are the most personalised ever, using signals from a multitude of Google-owned tech, including:
- Gmail (e.g. flights booked, receipts, personal convos)
- Google Calendar (events, plans, routines)
- Search history
- YouTube watch patterns
- Google Maps & location history
- Shopping behaviours
- Your fit bit activity (Google owns fitbit and health data too)
- Your actual online habits across devices
This shift marks a significant turning point. We’re no longer optimising for a ‘search engine’ in the traditional sense, we’re optimising for a version of Google that knows your customer better than they know themselves.
The SEO strategies that worked yesterday, targeting broad keywords and capturing generic intent, will quickly become obsolete. AI Mode is ushering in the era of intent prediction, behavioural search, and contextual personalisation.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
It means SEO is no longer just about getting to the top of a search result; it’s about being the most relevant result for an individual user, at a specific moment in their journey, across devices and contexts.
In practice, that means:
- Your content needs to work harder: It’s not enough to create “top 10” lists or generic buying guides. Google’s AI is looking at the intent behind the search and surfacing content that aligns not just with the query, but the user’s patterns, their calendar, inbox, location, and even mood (inferred through behaviour).
- Your brand must be recognisable and trustworthy across touchpoints: Google AI Mode pulls from your entire digital footprint. If your product is mentioned in YouTube reviews, appears in Maps listings, and has strong customer service signals, you’re more likely to be surfaced. If not, you’re invisible – even if your site is technically optimised.
- Search is becoming ‘zero-click’ by design: AI Mode summarises, anticipates, and delivers answers within the interface. If you’re not the source feeding those summaries via structured data, FAQs, and first-party experience, you won’t get the click.
If They Don’t Know You, You Won’t Show
Here’s the kicker: Google AI Mode rewards relevance as well as familiarity. That means if someone has never interacted with your brand before, you’re not just invisible… you may never even be considered.
This is where funnel-building becomes critical.
To perform in AI Mode, your SEO strategy must expand beyond Google. You need to seed awareness and interaction across multiple platforms so Google’s AI recognises that people know you.
That might mean:
- Running Meta campaigns to generate brand awareness
- Using TikTok to reach new audiences with engaging, memorable content
- Collecting email signups to create first-party data signals
- Re-targeting users with Google Ads who’ve browsed but not yet bought
- Encouraging reviews, UGC, and engagement that lives beyond your site
When people engage with your brand – even off-platform – those signals start to feed into the broader data ecosystem that informs Google’s AI. It’s not about gaming the algorithm. It’s about being recognisable, trustworthy, and relevant in more places than one.
Our View: The Next Generation of SEO is AI-Optimised Experience
At Neural Edge, we’ve been watching this change coming for a long time. Google’s move into AI Mode isn’t a gimmick; it’s the culmination of years of training models on the richest personal data set in human history. This isn’t just AI in Search; this is AI as Search.
We believe the next generation of SEO has already begun, and it’s not just about keywords and backlinks anymore. It’s about:
- Training Google’s AI with your content: Structured, high-quality, semantically rich content that helps the model learn, not just rank.
- Mapping content to human journeys: From first awareness to micro-moment decisions, every piece of content needs a clear purpose and audience.
- Owning your ecosystem: Your brand must be present (and consistent) across email, video, local, social, and even the inbox. The more signals the AI sees, the more you win.
The Bottom Line: If You’re Not AI-Ready, You’re Already Behind
We’re entering a phase where SEO isn’t a silo, it’s an integrated, AI-aware discipline that touches everything from product pages to CRM systems. Brands that prepare now will dominate the new search landscape. Those who wait will wonder where the traffic went.
We’re already helping our clients future-proof their search strategies for AI Mode, from experience-led content and structured data to behavioural journey mapping.
If you’re wondering how to adapt or you’re just starting to notice the drop in visibility and clicks, it’s time to talk.
