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The short version
Over a month of daily checks for one local electrician, Google AI Mode named the business twice as often as AI Overviews: 30% of answers against 15%.
- AI Mode leans on Google itself. 58% of its source links pointed to Google's own pages. AI Overviews: 21%. (Where it looks)
- It recommends a different set of businesses. Our test business was AI Mode's most-named electrician. In AI Overviews it was tied for fourth. (Who it names)
- Booking pages matter. AI Mode linked to online booking pages (Housecall Pro, Jobber and others) 322 times. AI Overviews barely touched them.
- Both left the same gaps. On panel-upgrade cost and every Coquitlam question, neither named the business once. (The gaps)
- The job is mostly your Google presence. Business Profile, reviews, booking page, and the directories Google reads. (What to do)
Most local businesses I talk to have heard of AI Overviews, the AI summary at the top of some Google results. Fewer have looked at the AI Mode tab next to it, and fewer still know it recommends different businesses. Here's what a month of daily data says about Google AI Mode for local businesses, and how it differs from AI Overviews.
What AI Mode is (and isn't)
The short answer: a separate, chat-style Google search that writes a full answer, takes follow-up questions and searches many sub-topics at once.
Google launched AI Mode in Canada in August 2025 as a tab on the results page and in the Google app. It described it as its most powerful AI search, built on a custom Gemini model, and said early users were asking questions two to three times longer than normal searches. That's from Google's announcement of AI Mode in Canada. By October 2025 it was available in more than 200 countries and territories.
Google's documentation on AI features and your website covers both AI Mode and AI Overviews. It explains that both can use "query fan-out", running several related searches behind the scenes, and that neither needs any special markup or optimisation.
What AI Mode isn't: a bigger AI Overview. AI Overviews appear inside normal results, and only when Google decides they help. AI Mode answers every time you ask. As you'll see, the two also read different sources and name different businesses.
How we measured it
The short answer: the same local questions, searched daily from the business's own city, in both AI Mode and AI Overviews, with every answer, business and source kept.
Our tool, LLM Visibility Lens, tracks Kato Electrical, a Vancouver-area electrician and our public demo. Every morning it asks his customers' questions in Google AI Mode and Google search (to catch the AI Overview), set to his city, plus ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. This article uses late August to 29 September 2026:
- AI Mode: 386 answers
- AI Overviews: 302 answers (days with no AI Overview are counted separately, not as zeros)
For each answer we recorded whether Kato was named, which other businesses were named, and every source link.
What this data can't tell you. One business, one trade, one metro area in Canada, about a month. The businesses named are extracted automatically, and I've counted spelling variants of the same company together (for example "TDR Electric" and "TDR Electric Inc."). The method is on the how it works page.
I sell this tracker, so weigh that. The demo is public if you'd like to check the numbers.
Who AI Mode names
AI Mode named Kato in 114 of 386 answers (30%). AI Overviews named him in 44 of 302 (15%).
That made him AI Mode's single most-named electrician. In AI Overviews he was tied for fourth, behind Expert Electric, TDR Electric and Wicks Electric.
The competitor lists differ too:
- Kerrisdale Electric was named in 44 AI Overviews but only 8 AI Mode answers.
- Wicks Electric: 50 AI Overviews, 29 AI Mode answers.
- Pacific Total Electric went the other way: 31 AI Mode answers, fewer than 3 AI Overviews.
Same questions, same Google, different winners. That matches Ahrefs' finding, reported by Search Engine Journal, that AI Mode and AI Overviews cite different sources for the same query 87% of the time.
Some things were similar. Each named about 1.8 businesses per answer on average. Each named no business at all in a bit under 40% of answers: 144 AI Mode answers (37%) and 119 AI Overviews (39%). And the answers were long in both. AI Overviews actually averaged slightly more text than AI Mode, about 3,400 characters against 3,100.
Want to know which questions to check for your own business? The free question finder writes them from your website.
AI Mode vs AI Overviews, question by question
AI Mode did better on almost every question where either one named Kato at all. Each cell shows answers naming him out of all answers.
| Question | AI Mode | AI Overviews |
|---|---|---|
| best electrician in Burnaby BC | 27/35 | 1/2 (usually no AI Overview) |
| who is the best electrician in Vancouver BC | 28/35 | 13/27 |
| who is the best licensed electrician in Vancouver BC | 26/34 | 19/28 |
| best licensed emergency electricians in Vancouver | 11/31 | 8/28 |
| emergency electrician service in Vancouver at night | 10/31 | 1/27 |
| who can install an EV charger in Vancouver | 10/35 | 0/33 |
| how much does a panel upgrade cost in Vancouver | 0/35 | 0/32 |
| three Coquitlam questions | 0/93 | 0/74 |
| six spoken questions (Surrey, Squamish, Coquitlam…) | 0/42 | 0/36 |
The Burnaby row is the clearest. For "best electrician in Burnaby BC", Google usually shows a map pack and no AI Overview at all. AI Mode still answers, and named Kato in 27 of 35. The AI Overviews article covers why that AI Overview rarely appears.
The emergency and EV charger rows show the same pattern from the other side. AI Overviews almost never named him there, while AI Mode named him about a third of the time.
You can click through any of these days in the live demo and read exactly what each one said.
What AI Mode reads
AI Mode draws mostly on Google's own pages. AI Overviews draws mostly on businesses' websites.
| Source | AI Mode | AI Overviews |
|---|---|---|
| Google's own pages (google.com) | 2,855 links in 207 answers | 998 links in 67 answers |
| Other businesses' websites | 19% of links | 54% of links |
| Online booking pages | 322 links | 2 links |
| Directories and review sites | 7% | 9% |
| Utility and city sites | 7% | 9% |
| Kato's own website | 13 answers | 53 answers |
Google's own pages. More than half of all AI Mode answers linked back to google.com, and 58% of all its source links went there. That's consistent with AI Mode drawing heavily on Google's own local data (Business Profiles, reviews, maps). It would also explain why it did best on "best electrician in…" questions, which are the ones where normal Google results show a map pack. That's my reading of the pattern, not something Google has said.
Booking pages. AI Mode cited online booking pages on Housecall Pro in 84 answers, Jobber in 42, Workiz in 5 and ServiceTitan in 1. When a Housecall Pro page was cited, Kato was named in 69 of those 84 answers. From domain counts alone I can't see whose booking pages they were. But a rate that high suggests that when AI Mode found a bookable page for a business, it tended to recommend that business.
Directories. When AI Mode cited HomeStars, Kato was named in 30 of 63 answers. When it cited Yelp's mobile site, 18 of 36. His overall AI Mode rate was 30%. Reddit was cited in 38 answers.
His own website, less. AI Mode cited katoelectrical.com in just 13 answers, and named him in all 13. AI Overviews cited his site in 53 answers. So AI Mode recommended him more often while reading his website far less. His Google presence carried more weight than his site.
For a wider view of what each AI system reads, see ChatGPT citations and Perplexity vs ChatGPT.
Where AI Mode doesn't help
AI Mode's advantage stops exactly where Kato's Google presence is thin.
- Panel-upgrade cost: 0 of 35 in AI Mode, 0 of 32 in AI Overviews. Cost questions get general advice, not recommendations.
- Coquitlam: 0 of 93 across three questions in AI Mode, 0 of 74 in AI Overviews. His strength is Vancouver and Burnaby.
- Spoken questions: 0 of 42. The long, conversational questions got no mentions at all in AI Mode. Our spoken questions article covers why.
A strong Business Profile in one area doesn't carry over to the next suburb or to a cost question. Each place and each kind of question has to be earned separately.
What to do for AI Mode
Most of this is local SEO done properly, aimed at what AI Mode actually reads.
- Treat your Business Profile as your AI Mode page. More than half of AI Mode's links went to Google's own pages. Keep your Google Business Profile complete: categories, services, service areas, hours, photos, and replies to reviews. Google's guide to business details in Search covers what it reads.
- Make your booking page a proper page. If you use Housecall Pro, Jobber, Workiz or ServiceTitan, the public booking page is a source AI Mode reads. Put your full business name, the services you actually offer and the areas you cover on it.
- Keep HomeStars and Yelp current. When AI Mode cited them, Kato was named in about half those answers. In the US, check which directories show up in your own answers.
- Earn each area separately. Business Profile service areas, reviews that mention the town, and a page on your site for each place you really serve. Coquitlam got nothing in either Google feature.
- Don't neglect your website. AI Mode read it rarely, but when it did it named Kato every time, and AI Overviews read it four times as often. The AI Overviews playbook covers the website side.
- Track AI Mode separately from AI Overviews. They named different businesses from different sources. A blended "Google AI" number would hide both. Why single AI rankings mislead explains more.
How to track Google AI Mode
Search your customers' questions in the AI Mode tab, signed out, from your city, daily for a few weeks. Note whether you're named, who else is named and which sources are linked. Do the same in normal Google results to see whether an AI Overview appears.
Search Console won't separate this for you. Google counts AI Mode and AI Overview traffic inside the normal "Web" performance report.
Or let LLM Visibility Lens do it. It checks AI Mode and AI Overviews separately every morning from your city, alongside ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, and keeps every answer, business and source.
Each month it turns that into an action plan: the questions nobody owns, the sites to get listed on, and the competitor pages AI trusts.
Agencies can send the monthly report under their own name, with AI Mode and AI Overviews reported separately. See the agency plan.
The plans start free, and a single one-off check has limits worth knowing. See what one free check can and can't do. There's also a plain comparison with Semrush's AI visibility tool, the changelog, the FAQ page and the security page. For the bigger picture, start with We asked AI who to hire 80 times and how to rank in ChatGPT. If you'd like me to look at your own AI Mode results, get in touch.
Questions people ask
What is Google AI Mode?
AI Mode is a tab in Google Search that gives a full AI-written answer to your question, takes follow-up questions, and runs several related searches behind the scenes. Google launched it in Canada in August 2025, and by October 2025 it was available in more than 200 countries and territories. Unlike AI Overviews, it answers every time you use it.
What is the difference between AI Mode and AI Overviews?
AI Overviews appear inside normal Google results, and only when Google thinks they help. AI Mode is a separate tab that always answers. In our local data they also behaved differently: AI Mode named our test business in 30% of answers against 15% for AI Overviews, and 58% of AI Mode's source links went to Google's own pages against 21% for AI Overviews.
Which businesses does Google AI Mode recommend?
In our data, the businesses AI Mode named most were those with a strong Google presence for the question asked. Our test electrician was AI Mode's most-named business on Vancouver and Burnaby questions, but named in none of the Coquitlam or cost questions. AI Mode also named a different mix of competitors than AI Overviews did for the same questions.
Does Google AI Mode use Google Business Profile?
Google hasn't published exactly which sources AI Mode uses for local answers. In our data, more than half of AI Mode answers linked back to Google's own pages, and it did best on questions where normal results show a map pack. That strongly suggests Google's local data, including Business Profiles, plays a big part.
How do I get my business recommended in Google AI Mode?
Keep your Google Business Profile complete and current, make any public booking page show your name, services and areas, keep directory profiles such as HomeStars and Yelp up to date, and build a presence in each area you serve. Google says AI Mode needs no special markup beyond normal SEO best practice.
Can I see AI Mode traffic in Search Console?
Not separately. Google counts AI Mode and AI Overview appearances and clicks within the "Web" search type of the Performance report. To know whether AI Mode recommends you, you need to check the answers themselves, ideally daily from your customers' location.
Harjeet Singh Bedi Founder, LLM Visibility Lens · SEO consultant, Bedi SEO
Harjeet has worked in SEO since 2010, first in agencies and now running Bedi SEO for local businesses, online stores and agencies. He built LLM Visibility Lens after clients kept asking whether they showed up in ChatGPT and Google's AI and nobody could give them an honest, measured answer. Every figure in this article comes from answers his tool collected.