Google makes source links more visible in AI Mode and AI Overviews
Google is moving links to websites higher in its AI search answers, expanding news carousels and making creator names in AI Mode video results clickable.
Google has rolled out a set of changes, reported on October 16, 2026, that give links to source websites more prominence inside its AI-powered search features, AI Mode and AI Overviews. The updates cover news content, official websites and the profiles of video creators.
Because AI answers stitch together information from many sites into a single summary, users can often get what they need without ever clicking through. That has worried publishers who have seen referral traffic from the search engine decline. The new measures are meant to narrow the gap between the summary and the pages it draws on.
Links move toward the top
Under the changes, links embedded within AI answers will appear more often and will be placed higher in the response. Users should no longer need to scroll to the end of a long answer to see which site a piece of information came from. Links listed beneath the answers will also carry small preview images to make them stand out.
Video results get an update as well. In AI Mode, Google has made creators' names clickable, sending users to that person's Google Search profile where they can browse more of their work. The idea is that a single video can become a starting point for discovering a creator's wider output.
Official sites and news carousels
When someone wants to complete a specific task, Google now shows one or two official websites in a dedicated section at the very top of the AI answer. That lets people go straight to the authoritative source rather than relying on a generated summary. News carousels, which highlight current stories with images, are also being extended to more languages and regions.
The changes arrive amid an ongoing debate about how AI summaries affect the open web and the businesses that produce its content. Google says it wants users to follow answers back to their sources, not just read them on the results page. How much the adjustments will actually lift publisher traffic remains unclear, and the company has not shared figures.
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