What is Google AI Mode: what changes for brands in Türkiye
What is Google AI Mode, when did it launch in Türkiye and how does it differ from AI Overviews? A practical look at content, technical and measurement prep.
By Roozbeh Nazari · CEO
The question "what is Google AI Mode" stopped being theoretical for marketing teams in Türkiye in February 2026. On 18 February 2026 Google announced that AI Mode and AI Overviews were being rolled out gradually, in Turkish, to users in Türkiye. Before that date AI Mode was an interface unavailable in Türkiye whose impact was debated in English-language markets; now it appears on Turkish queries too. This article explains what AI Mode is, how it differs from AI Overviews, and what a brand needs to change on the content, technical and measurement side to be visible in it. It contains no ranking or citation guarantees; it rests on Google's own documentation and on our own observations.
The difference between AI Mode and AI Overviews
AI Overviews is a generative summary that appears above the classic results page; it shows up when a query is judged suitable, with source links inside or beside the summary. AI Mode is a separate tab: the user asks in conversational form, can ask follow-up questions, and can use text, voice and camera input. According to Google's Türkiye announcement, both features run on the Gemini 3 model family, and AI Mode uses a "query fan-out" technique that splits one question into multiple sub-searches to produce its answer. The practical difference for brands: in AI Overviews your content is cited as a source for one summary; in AI Mode you are evaluated separately in each of several sub-queries. So preparing one page for the "main query" is not enough; you need pages that answer each of the sub-questions. Search Central's "AI features and your website" page states plainly that both features rely on the same core ranking systems and that no extra markup or special technical requirement exists.
What changed in Türkiye, and what did not
What changed is that a share of Turkish queries is now answered in a two-layer interface. The classic result list is still there, but an information-seeking user can settle for the summary or move to the AI Mode tab and keep the conversation going. This changes click behaviour by query type: for definitions and comparisons the summary may be enough, while for transactional queries such as purchases and appointments the user still goes to a site. What did not change is the logic of source selection. Google's guidance from May 2025 says no separate "AI SEO" is needed to succeed in AI experiences; original, helpful, clearly sourced content and a healthy technical foundation apply in the same way. Our own observation supports this: passage-oriented content prepared for AI Overviews is also cited in AI Mode; what differs is that the number and variety of cited pages increases. In our AI search visibility service we track both interfaces in a single measurement framework, because both use the same content at different intensities.
Preparing brands: the content side
AI Mode's habit of splitting into sub-queries makes it necessary to think of the content plan as topic clusters. Instead of one page that "says everything" about a service, you need sections or pages that give a clear, self-contained answer to each follow-up question a user would ask in a conversation: what it is, who it is for, how long it takes, what the alternative is, how it compares. The first two sentences of each section should answer the question directly; reasoning and detail come after. This structure is the same set of principles we described in our passage citability article. One extra note for Turkish: AI Mode tries to answer Turkish queries with Turkish sources; brands with English content but weak Turkish pages meet their competitors' Turkish pages on Turkish queries, not their own English ones. On multilingual sites, each language being complete on its own makes a more visible difference in AI interfaces than it used to.
Preparation: the technical and measurement side
There is no new technical requirement, but the tolerance for the old ones is shrinking. Crawlability, a fast-responding server, a clean heading hierarchy and correct structured data are preconditions for a page to be served as a "piece" for sub-queries. Google states that AI features are reported inside normal web traffic in the Search Console Performance report, not as a separate filter; so the question "how much traffic came from AI Mode" has no direct answer in Search Console today. We use three indirect routes for measurement: running the same query set through AI Mode by hand and recording the cited sources, flagging queries in Search Console where impressions stay flat while clicks fall, and watching for AI products among referral sources in GA4. These methods give a trend, not a precise share, and the report has to say so explicitly. Our technical SEO service treats this preparation as part of the existing audit, not as a separate package for AI interfaces.
What not to do
We see two mistakes often. First, services that sell "special markup" or "hidden keywords" for AI Mode; Google's documentation says no such mechanism exists, and interventions of this kind can fall under spam policies. Second, reporting traffic from AI interfaces in precise figures; the infrastructure for that does not exist today, and reports must separate estimate from measurement. In sensitive fields such as health and finance there is a third mistake: producing bold, outcome-promising content to appear in AI Mode. Türkiye's health promotion regulation already prohibits such content, and AI interfaces reward reliability when they choose sources. In short, AI Mode widens the reach of work done well; it does not reward shortcuts.
A 30-day starter checklist
Instead of opening a separate project for AI Mode, adding four items to the existing SEO plan is enough. First, run your 20 most important queries through AI Mode by hand and record which sources are cited in a table; repeated a month later with the same method, this table becomes your first trend data. Second, check whether the first two sentences of every main section on your service pages answer the question directly; if not, move the sentence to the top. Third, confirm that your Turkish pages have the same depth as your English pages; if a section is missing, complete it first. Fourth, flag the queries in Search Console whose impressions held steady while clicks fell over the last 28 days, and look at how those queries are answered in AI Overviews or AI Mode. These four items close the gap between knowing what AI Mode is and being ready for it.