The short answer: ask it, then read the links
To find out whether your business is in Google AI Mode, ask it the questions your customers ask and read what it names and which pages it links to. That is the whole method. The rest of this page is about doing it carefully enough that you can trust what you see.
AI Mode is a feature of Google Search. You reach it from a tab or button in Google, type a question in ordinary language, and get a written answer with links to the pages it drew on. You can then ask a follow-up and it carries on from the first answer, rather than starting again.
This page covers only that one surface. If you want the general method for the standalone assistants such as ChatGPT, our walkthrough for the other assistants is the right starting point, and AI Mode is a good addition to it, not a replacement.
Open AI Mode, ask a real buyer question, note every business named and every source linked, repeat for ten questions, and keep the notes.
AI Mode is not AI Overviews
People mix the two up, and the confusion leads to checking the wrong thing.
AI Overviews are the summaries that sometimes appear at the top of an ordinary Google results page. You did not ask for them. They show up for some searches, they sit above the usual blue links, and you scroll past them to get to the rest. Tracking them means repeating particular searches and seeing whether the summary appears and who it cites. We cover that in tracking AI Overviews, and the term itself is defined in our glossary entry on AI Overviews.
AI Mode is something you choose to enter. The answer is not a box above other results. It is the main content, written in full, and you keep going with follow-ups. It tends to draw on a wider set of pages for a question, and the answer is built to feel like a conversation with a knowledgeable person.
The practical difference for you is that the checks are different. An Overview check is "does a summary appear when I search this, and am I in it." An AI Mode check is "when someone asks this, in conversation, who does it name and why." A business can be absent from one and present in the other, so do not let a good result in one stand in for the other.
Where to find AI Mode, and why you might not see it
In Google Search, AI Mode is usually offered as a tab or a button near the search box. Selecting it takes you to a conversation-style screen where you type your question.
Availability has changed over time and varies by country, by language and sometimes by account type. If you cannot see it, that does not mean something is wrong with your browser. It may not have reached your region or your kind of account yet. Check Google's own help pages for the current position, because this is the kind of detail that moves faster than any article can.
If you cannot reach it at all, the check for this surface has to wait, and you can still run the standard check with the four standalone assistants. We set that out in our free manual check. If your customers cannot reach AI Mode either, this surface matters less to you today than the others.
One caution about devices. Phones and desktops may show different layouts, and the mobile view is often what your customers use. If your customers are mostly on phones, check there at least once.
Running the check, step by step
Here is a routine that takes about fifteen minutes for ten questions.
- Prepare ten questions in your buyers' own words, with no brand names. If you do not have them yet, read how to write the questions you test with.
- Use a private window and, if you can, stay signed out of Google, so your search history does not shape the answer. If AI Mode needs you signed in in your region, note that in your records.
- Open AI Mode and paste the first question exactly as written.
- Read the full answer. Do not stop at the first paragraph. Names often appear partway down, in a list or a comparison.
- Write down every business named, in the order given, and whether you were among them.
- Open the source links and write down the site names. This step is the one that makes the check useful.
- Start a new session for the next question so the previous one does not carry over.
The sixth step deserves emphasis, because it separates AI Mode from the standalone assistants. The sources are shown right there, which means every answer is also a list of the pages Google thought were worth using.
What the source links tell you
Here is where AI Mode is more generous than most assistants. Its answers usually come with links to the pages they were built from. That gives you a direct look at what Google found credible for your question.
Sort the links you see into rough groups.
- Business websites. Companies describing themselves. These are claims, not endorsements.
- Review and directory pages. Places where customers or editors have said something about a business.
- Forums and discussion threads. People talking among themselves about what they used.
- News, guides and local publications. Third parties writing about a category.
- Your own pages. If you are linked, note which page and for which question.
Patterns in that list matter more than any one link. If the sources for your category are mostly forum threads and local guides, then a page of your own is unlikely to be the thing that gets you named. Someone else needs to be talking about you. Our write-up of how AI assistants pick businesses explores that idea, and the field test behind it is described there rather than repeated here.
Also look at which of your own pages Google linked, if any. A page that gets linked for a question is a page that answers it. A page you expected to be linked and was not is worth another look.
Named, linked, both, or neither
AI Mode gives you two separate signals, and they can disagree.
Named in the text. The answer mentions your business by name. A reader sees it.
Linked as a source. One of your pages is among the links. A reader may or may not click it.
Four combinations are possible.
- Named and linked. Strongest. The answer used your page and said your name.
- Named but not linked. The system knows about you from elsewhere. Someone else's page may be the source.
- Linked but not named. Your page informed the answer, but the answer talked about the topic, not about you. Often an educational page doing its job without credit.
- Neither. Absent for this question.
Record which of the four each answer was. A column with four possible values is easy to keep, and it will tell you more than a yes or no. The pages on reading your AI visibility results take these same categories and say what each one suggests you do.
Using follow-up questions on purpose
Because AI Mode is conversational, the follow-up is part of the product. You can use that for a second pass, after your first set of ten is recorded.
Useful follow-ups are the ones a real buyer would ask next.
- "Which of those is best for a small budget?"
- "What should I ask them before hiring?"
- "Are there any local options?"
- "How do those compare?"
Watch whether the same businesses remain in the answer as the question narrows. A name that appears at the broad stage and drops out at the narrow one tells you something. So does a name that only appears once the buyer adds a constraint such as a place or a price.
Keep follow-ups separate in your notes from first questions, because they are not comparable month to month unless you ask them identically each time. If you do use them, write the follow-up wording down and repeat it exactly.
Repeating it so the result means something
One run is a snapshot. AI answers vary from run to run, and Google's own answers can change as the system is updated. If something matters to you, ask the question again a few times in new sessions before drawing a conclusion.
For a monthly record, keep the questions fixed, check at roughly the same time, and store the notes in the same document. Our page on an AI visibility tracking spreadsheet shows a simple layout, and AI Mode can be one more column in it.
If you want the general idea of how often results shift and why, see why AI answers change. The short form is that a single answer proves little, and a pattern across several is what you can reasonably act on.
Treat your AI Mode results as one line in a larger picture. The standalone assistants, AI Overviews and ordinary rankings each tell you something different. None of them tells you everything.
What to do with what you find
The result sorts you into one of a few situations, and each one points somewhere different.
Absent, with other businesses named. Look at the sources behind those other names. What do their sources have that yours lack? That is the subject of checking competitors in AI search.
Linked but not named. Your pages are useful. Check whether they say clearly who you are and what you do near the top, so the answer has a reason to name you.
Named in AI Mode but not elsewhere. Good, and worth understanding. Look at which sources carried you there.
For the deeper question of why systems pick the sources they do, our explainer on how LLMs choose sources is the next read. LLM stands for large language model, the kind of system that writes the answers you see in AI Mode and in standalone assistants.
Do not rush to change your pages after one check. Run it a second time first.
Mistakes that spoil an AI Mode check
Most bad AI Mode readings come from a handful of habits. Each is easy to avoid once you know it.
Searching your own name. Typing your business name into AI Mode tells you what Google knows about you after you named yourself. It says nothing about whether a stranger finds you. Leave your name out of every question.
Stopping at the first paragraph. Long answers often name businesses further down, in a list, a comparison or a closing suggestion. Read to the end, and open any expandable parts.
Judging by the first source link only. The links are a set. Look at the whole group and ask what kinds of page dominate.
Letting one session bleed into the next. Because AI Mode remembers the thread, a second question asked in the same conversation is shaped by the first. Start fresh for each new first-pass question.
Checking once and deciding. One answer is a snapshot. Ask important questions a few times across a few days before you decide anything.
Ignoring the phone. If your customers search on mobile, the layout and sometimes the answer can differ. Check at least a few questions there.
Treating a link as a recommendation. A page can be a source without being praised. Read what the answer actually says about the business, not only whether a link appears.
Avoid those seven and your notes will be better than most. A careful, small check beats a sprawling careless one every time.
Where RunOctopus comes in
There is no automated Google AI Mode checker in RunOctopus, free or paid, and checking AI Mode stays a manual job as described above. What we do is the building that a check points to.
RunOctopus is a done-for-you service. Ollie, our AI, researches your business and then writes and publishes pages directly on your own website, with a team that plans, writes, reviews and publishes alongside it. It works with Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce and Wix, and you install nothing and approve nothing. In the first week that means 8 long-form articles, 6 pages and a custom interactive tool built for your niche, and after that 175 or more pieces of content a month, written, published and linked.
Paying customers get reports on where ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini name their business. Those reports do not cover Google AI Mode, so keep the manual check from this page for that.
If you want to see what Ollie would plan for your site, the free site read reads your address and shows the plan, with no account and no call. It does not show you what AI Mode says about you.