Google adds more inline links to AI Mode and AI Overviews
Google is adding more inline links to AI Mode and AI Overviews and showing them higher in answers, so the pages it cites are easier to click.
TL;DR
- Google said on 15 October 2026 that it has substantially increased inline links in AI Mode and AI Overviews and will show them higher.
- Google named no countries for the inline link change, and its official-site section and clickable creator names in AI Mode are still tests.
- Site owners should compare clicks per page in Google Search Console, which reports AI Mode and AI Overviews traffic under the Web search type.
What changed
Google added more inline links to AI Mode and AI Overviews, according to Google’s post of 15 October 2026, and is launching updates that show those links higher up in responses more often. An inline link is a link set into a word or phrase of an AI response, which lets the reader open one of the pages Google AI Overviews choose as sources while reading.
“We’ve made continued and substantial increases to the presence of inline links in our AI experiences,” wrote Hema Budaraju, VP of Product Management at Google. The post gives no figure for the increase and names no countries.
The same post lists four more changes to Google’s AI answers:
- Official sites: Google will test a section at the top of some responses for tasks that only one or two official sites handle, with context on why each link is useful.
- News carousels: Carousels of timely articles in AI answers are rolling out to more locations and languages, none of which the post names, and they highlight a reader’s Preferred Sources.
- Related articles: Links at the end of some AI responses get image thumbnails and a more clickable design.
- Creators: In AI Mode, Google began testing clickable creator and publisher names on video results that link to their Search profiles.
Preferred Sources is a Google Search setting that lets a person pick the sites they want to see more of. The number of people using it has grown by more than 7x since the beginning of the year, Google said in the same post. In AI Mode and AI Overviews, content from a chosen site can carry a badge marking it as preferred, according to Google’s Preferred Sources guide for publishers.
What it means
SEO leads should compare page clicks in Google Search Console before and after 15 October 2026, and check which pages get an inline link in AI answers. As of 29 October 2026, Google’s guide to AI features says the Performance report counts that traffic under the Web search type, inside overall traffic. Only indexed, snippet-eligible pages can be supporting links, so check for any nosnippet or noindex rules. For missing pages, follow how to get pages into Google AI Overviews.