Google confirms some AI Overviews now expand into full AI Mode answers

Search Engine Roundtable reported on 28 August 2026 that Google has confirmed a change in how AI Overviews appear on the search results page. On some queries, the AI Overview now expands into a fuller answer, similar to what AI Mode returns, without the searcher clicking the Show more button. The follow-up Ask anything prompt box is loaded at the same time. Barry Schwartz filed the report and quotes a Google spokesperson directly.

Chris Long, the SEO practitioner who posted the first public example on X on 27 August, wrote that Google is "revealing the AI Mode prompt box BY DEFAULT for some queries" and called it the company's continuing push to make AI Mode the default search experience. Barry Schwartz says he can replicate the behaviour on his own searches.

What Google said

The spokesperson gave Search Engine Roundtable this statement: "For some queries, AI Overviews may dynamically expand for topics where our systems determine it is most useful for people. Our research has shown that with this dynamic experience, users find Search more helpful and engage deeper in follow-up exploration." Google did not name which queries or topics are eligible.

Robby Stein of Google Search added a clarification on X, quoted in the same article: "AI Overviews only dynamically expand for topics where our systems determine it to be most useful. If you have already started scrolling, the expansion stops to keep your place." So the expansion is conditional on the searcher not scrolling first, and Google's language describes an ongoing test on a subset of queries.

What changes on the page

Before this test, an AI Overview loaded a short summary at the top of the results and required a Show more click to reveal the rest. On queries where the new behaviour fires, the full AI answer opens by default and the Ask anything box, previously the way into AI Mode, appears with it. The article shows a before-and-after screenshot: the ten organic result links move well below the visible screen area.

For a site owner, that means the same query that used to give a searcher a short AI summary and then a list of organic results now gives them a longer AI answer and an invitation to keep the conversation inside Google. The visit that used to go to a publisher's page now competes with the searcher's follow-up prompt.

This is one more step in the direction of the last two years, so treat it as confirmation of the trend. Two practical things follow.

First, if you have not already, separate the queries where your site's traffic comes from the ten organic result links from the queries where it is likely to be cited inside the AI Overview. The strategy for each is different, and the same page cannot be optimised for both at once.

Second, watch your Search Console impressions and clicks together on the same queries. An impression on a query that now defaults to an expanded AI Overview is a much weaker signal than the same impression a year ago, because the searcher may never scroll to see your listing. A rising impression count with flat or falling clicks on those queries is the pattern to look for.

Source

• Google AI Overviews Pushing Searchers Into AI Mode, Drops Show More Button, Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable, 28 August 2026.