Knowledge base v2.13.0 · Community edition · data through 2 October 2026
Day 1 · Wednesday 30 September 2026 · 11:35
Speaker from his self-introduction at the start of the talk, in a second attendee recording.
AI Mode queries have doubled every quarter since launch.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence slide photo
The average AI Mode query is about 3 times the length of a traditional search (the opening keynote's slide and its speaker said two to three times).
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence 2 slide photos, transcript
Used byglossary term AI Mode
One in six AI Mode searches is multimodal, using voice or images.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence slide photo
Follow-up queries in AI Mode have grown by more than 40% per month on average in the US since launch.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence slide photo
Used byglossary term AI Mode
Google describes four new ways people search in AI Mode: Explore (brainstorming queries, grown 30% faster than AI Mode queries overall in the US since launch), Learn (study guides, deep dives), Decide (searches beginning with 'which', up 40% faster than AI Mode queries overall in the past six months) and Do (planning queries, up 80% faster than AI Mode queries overall in the past six months).
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence 2 slide photos, transcript
Queries of five or more words are growing in volume 1.5 times faster than shorter queries. The slide footnote cites Google internal data on global English-language queries, for a comparison period that starts in November 2022 (the remaining dates are only partly legible).
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence slide photo
Search Agents in AI Mode let users set standing requests for updates, such as being told when a product goes on sale, a team wins or a price drops below a level.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence slide photo, transcript
Google listed eight ways AI Search helps users find and visit websites: preferred sources expansion, fresh perspectives and prominent links, subscription content, in-line quotes in AI Mode and AI Overviews, rich linking and embedded web, context on content sources, 'Highly Cited' labels and Search profiles.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence slide photo, transcript
Users can link their subscriptions so answers highlight paywalled content they already pay for; The Indian Express saw 34% more engagement among linked subscribers.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence slide photo, transcript
Publishers and creators can claim a dedicated Search profile with a name, profile photo, cover image, bio, connected social and website accounts, pinned posts and links, and users can follow it.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence slide photo
Used byglossary term Search profile
Sites that users mark as a preferred source are more visible in Top Stories and are labelled in AI Mode and AI Overviews.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence slide photo, transcript
Search Console has a property setting called Search generative AI that gives direct control over AI Overviews and AI Mode without affecting web rankings. Its states are inherit from parent, include and exclude.
“Direct control over AI Overviews and AI Mode without impacting web rankings.”
Wording checked against the slide or recording
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence slide photo, transcript
Used byrequirement DEV-IDX-10fact F-012glossary term Search generative AI control
Knowing how Search works largely means knowing how the AI features work.
“If you know how Search works, you largely also know how AI features work.”
Wording checked against the slide or recording
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence slide photo, transcript
Gary Illyes argued that GEO is a label invented to create a new field and is not needed. Understanding how SEO works is enough.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence notes, transcript
Used bystory angle A-001
Gary Illyes said that in about 30 years of web search, helping users complete their journeys has made them search more, not less, unlike a product whose problem is solved once and for all.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Google said Gen Z users are a very large part of Google Search's user base and search differently from older users, for example with images.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Google said AI Mode is growing almost exponentially and that people are searching more because of it, not less.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Google said a multi-part query, such as a white three-row SUV for two teenagers and a car-sick dog, cannot be satisfied by a list of links because no single article covers every aspect, while AI Overviews and AI Mode can synthesise an answer that helps users decide where to go.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Gary Illyes said that in the mid-1990s searchers had to speak machine, typing queries like 'weather Barcelona rain', whereas today machines understand how people naturally speak.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Google presented the intelligent search box as one of its recent Search launches; it accepts long queries and keeps expanding to make room for them.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Google said it noticed young users uploading pictures to reverse image search and expecting results that answer something about the picture, and that Google Lens was its answer to that behaviour.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Used byglossary term Google Lens
AI Overviews and AI Mode work together: a user can start with an AI Overview and continue the conversation in AI Mode.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Google said Google Lens is used by over 1.5 billion people (figure as said on stage on 30 September 2026; no period was given).
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Google said Search agents in AI Mode had launched globally a day or two before 30 September 2026.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Used byglossary term Search agents (information agents)
A Search agent is set up by typing a natural-language request, which AI Mode interprets to create an alert; Google called this an information agent.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Used byglossary term Search agents (information agents)
Google said it would roll out agentic capabilities that allow bookings later in 2026, in the US only at first.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Google said Search Console's generative AI reporting launched alongside the generative AI control, starting with impressions only, and may expand later.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Gary Illyes traced 'SEO is dead' predictions back to a post titled 'Search engine R.I.P.' on an online advertising forum on 10 November 1997, and said such posts still appear every month or even every week.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Used bystory angle A-001
Gary Illyes said SEO is not dead and that the new AI features only create more opportunities for site owners to take advantage of.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Used bystory angle A-001
Gary Illyes said searching by image or by video, as Search offers it today, was not possible before transformers were invented.
Speaker Gary IllyesEvidence transcript
Search profiles launched on 4 June 2026, in the US first, for creators and publishers with a sizable following on at least one major social or video platform. They appear in knowledge panels and Discover.
Publisher Google blog (4 June 2026)
Since 16 September 2026, US publishers and creators qualify for a Search profile with 10,000 followers across YouTube, Instagram, X or TikTok, and media organisations can claim and manage profiles for all their sub-brands from one login.
“We've lowered the eligibility threshold to 10,000 followers across YouTube, Instagram, X, or TikTok.”
Publisher Google blog (16 September 2026)
Used byglossary term Search profile
The Search generative AI control covers AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI features in Discover. Excluding removes both links to the site and use of its content to ground answers.
Publisher Google Search Console Help
Used byrequirement DEV-IDX-10glossary term Search generative AI control
Google says the control is not used as a ranking or inclusion signal for regular results.
“this control isn't used as a ranking or inclusion signal”
Publisher Google Search Console Help
Used byrequirement DEV-IDX-10fact F-012glossary term Search generative AI control
The control does not affect AI training. Training of the models is limited with Google-Extended instead.
Publisher Google Search Console Help
Used byrequirement DEV-IDX-11glossary term Google-Extended
Changes to the control generally apply within 1–2 days, though some content takes longer. It works at property level only, and a child property inherits from its closest parent that changed the setting.
Publisher Google Search Console Help
Used byrequirement DEV-IDX-10
Google's May 2025 Search announcement says more than 1.5 billion people use Google Lens to search what they see every month.
“Google Lens, which more than 1.5 billion people are using to search what they see every month”
Publisher Google blog (20 May 2025)
Used byglossary term Google Lens
A search marketing agency reported on 29 September 2026 that Google's VP of Product for Search announced on X, on 28 September 2026, that AI Mode information monitoring was rolling out to everyone globally in the Google app; Google's I/O 2026 post had launched information agents first for AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in summer 2026.
Reported by Relevant Audience (29 September 2026), Google blog (19 May 2026)
Preferred sources, linked subscriptions and Search profiles all depend on users acting on a brand's behalf. They reward brands with a loyal audience and do little for anonymous lead-generation sites.
Author Ibrahim Anjro
Lead-generation, local-service and e-commerce sites should normally stay included, because AI answers cite and link sources. Sites selling paywalled or licensed content should test exclusion on a child property first. Use nosnippet only if you also want out of regular snippets.
Author Ibrahim Anjro
Used byrequirement DEV-IDX-10
Visual search predates transformers in Google's own history: its Search timeline dates Google Images to 2001 and Google Lens to 2017, the year Google Research published the Transformer, so read the stage remark as being about today's multimodal AI search.
Author Ibrahim Anjro
A community speaker argued for adopting the GEO label as the industry's chance to leave behind the bad reputation SEO built, unlike Google's view earlier the same day that the new name is not needed.
Gary Illyes argued that GEO is a label invented to create a new field and is not needed. Understanding how SEO works is enough.
Gary Illyes said that in about 30 years of web search, helping users complete their journeys has made them search more, not less, unlike a product whose problem is solved once and for all.
The keynote showed a slide quoting Elizabeth Reid (VP, Search) saying Search is never a solved problem because the internet and the world keep changing.
Google said AI Mode is growing almost exponentially and that people are searching more because of it, not less.
Google says users like AI Overviews and search more because of them, with early feedback overwhelmingly positive and satisfaction highest among 18–24 year olds.
Google presented the intelligent search box as one of its recent Search launches; it accepts long queries and keeps expanding to make room for them.
Google said it has made the biggest change to its search box in the last 25 years.
AI Overviews and AI Mode work together: a user can start with an AI Overview and continue the conversation in AI Mode.
Google said AI Overviews and AI Mode are integrated into one seamless AI experience in Search.
Gary Illyes said SEO is not dead and that the new AI features only create more opportunities for site owners to take advantage of.
Google's answer to 'SEO is dead, long live GEO' is not to worry about the name: good SEO is good GEO and AEO.
Gary Illyes said searching by image or by video, as Search offers it today, was not possible before transformers were invented.
Google said it created the Transformer architecture (the paper 'Attention Is All You Need', the T in ChatGPT) and published it to move the industry forward, competitors included.
The nosnippet rule also prevents a page's content from being used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search.
Lead-generation, local-service and e-commerce sites should normally stay included, because AI answers cite and link sources. Sites selling paywalled or licensed content should test exclusion on a child property first. Use nosnippet only if you also want out of regular snippets.
Setting the Search generative AI control in Search Console to exclude keeps a site's links and content out of Search generative AI features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, so the site gets no traffic or impressions from them; include is the default.
Search Console has a property setting called Search generative AI that gives direct control over AI Overviews and AI Mode without affecting web rankings. Its states are inherit from parent, include and exclude.
Google can add elements to a text result, such as a 'highly cited' badge or a preferred-source badge.
Sites that users mark as a preferred source are more visible in Top Stories and are labelled in AI Mode and AI Overviews.
Google's social and video performance guide says that if you already claimed your Search profile, all of its verified accounts are added automatically as platform properties in Search Console.
Publishers and creators can claim a dedicated Search profile with a name, profile photo, cover image, bio, connected social and website accounts, pinned posts and links, and users can follow it.
Google's research also counted easy access as part of AI's ease benefit: multimodal input, such as taking pictures, and low friction lower the barrier to entry.
One in six AI Mode searches is multimodal, using voice or images.
Google said Search Console's generative AI reporting launched alongside the generative AI control, starting with impressions only, and may expand later.
Google's launch post for the Generative AI performance reports in Search Console (3 June 2026; rolled out to all sites worldwide by 31 August 2026) lists impressions, pages, countries, devices (Search only) and dates, and no click or query metrics.
Setting the Search generative AI control in Search Console to exclude keeps a site's links and content out of Search generative AI features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, so the site gets no traffic or impressions from them; include is the default.
The Search generative AI control covers AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI features in Discover. Excluding removes both links to the site and use of its content to ground answers.
Search Console has a tool with which every property owner can tell Google whether the site's content may be used in AI search results, because Google wants content owners to control their content.
Search Console has a property setting called Search generative AI that gives direct control over AI Overviews and AI Mode without affecting web rankings. Its states are inherit from parent, include and exclude.
Google called AI reporting in Search Console an evolving space and expects the generative AI report to get richer, with more information in the future.
Google said Search Console's generative AI reporting launched alongside the generative AI control, starting with impressions only, and may expand later.