Do you run a site outside the US and wonder when Google’s AI Mode would reach your audience? The answer is now. On 21 August 2025, Google said AI Mode is expanding in English to more than 180 new countries and territories. So the AI Mode 180 countries rollout puts the chat-style search tab in front of English-language searchers across most of the world.
The same announcement added agentic features (where the AI does tasks for you) and personalization. But those are limited to the US for now. Below I break down what launched where, how it affects your visibility and reporting, and what I’d do this week.
What Google Announced on 21 August 2025
The news came in a post on Google’s Search blog by Robby Stein, VP of Product for Google Search. It bundled four separate changes. They are not all available in the same places, and that is where most of the confusion comes from.
- Global expansion: AI Mode is expanding to over 180 new countries and territories, in English. Before this, it was only available in the US, the UK and India.
- Agentic restaurant reservations: AI Mode can search several reservation platforms for live availability. It then gives you a shortlist with links to book.
- Personalized results: results shaped to your preferences, starting with dining. This is for US users who opted into the AI Mode experiment in Labs.
- Link sharing: US users can share an AI Mode response with someone else. That person can pick up the conversation and ask follow-up questions.
You can read the full announcement on the Google Search blog. Google also said more languages and regions are coming, but it gave no dates.
What Launched Where
This is the part that matters most for planning. Only the core AI Mode experience went global. Everything new is US-only, and some of it needs a paid plan.
| Feature | Where it is available | Who gets it |
|---|---|---|
| AI Mode (core experience) | US, UK, India plus 180+ new countries and territories | Everyone searching in English in those markets |
| Agentic restaurant reservations | US only | Google AI Ultra subscribers who turn on the “Agentic capabilities in AI Mode” experiment in Labs |
| Personalized dining results | US only | Users who opted into the AI Mode experiment in Labs |
| Sharing AI Mode responses | US only | US users |
One big gap: countries in the European Union were not part of this rollout. If most of your audience is in the EU, AI Mode does not yet affect how they search Google.
The other limit is language. AI Mode in the new markets works in English only. If your customers mostly search in Spanish, Arabic, French or another language, the effect on your traffic right now will be smaller. It will be smaller than for an English-language site in the same country.
How the Agentic Features Work
The main new feature is restaurant reservations. A user can type a request with several conditions at once, such as party size, date, time, area and cuisine. AI Mode then checks several reservation platforms for live availability. It returns a short, chosen list of options.
The key point: it does not finish the booking itself. The user is sent to the reservation page on the partner platform to complete it.
Google says this uses live web browsing from Project Mariner, direct partner links, the Knowledge Graph and Google Maps. Named partners include OpenTable, Resy, Tock, Ticketmaster, StubHub, SeatGeek and Booksy. Google says local service appointments and event tickets are coming next.
For most businesses the lesson is simple. In these agentic flows, the action often happens on a booking platform, not your website. If you are a restaurant, your listing on the booking platforms you use and your Google Business Profile matter most. Your own site still helps people decide. But it may not be where the booking happens.
We covered a similar shift from the AI assistant side when we looked at what it means when ChatGPT’s agent browses your website. The pattern is the same. AI systems are starting to finish tasks, not just answer questions.
Personalization and Sharing
Personalization in AI Mode starts with dining suggestions for restaurants and cafes. It can use a user’s past AI Mode conversations. It can also use the places they have searched for or tapped on in Search and Maps.
Users control what is used and can change personalization settings in their Google Account. For now this is only for US users in the Labs experiment.
For local businesses, this means two people asking the same question may see different suggestions. Rank tracking for local, preference-based queries was already rough. Personalization makes a single “position” mean even less for those searches. I’ve never put much weight on one local ranking number, and this is another reason not to.
Link sharing lets someone send an AI Mode response to a friend, who opens it where the sender left off. Google pitches it for group tasks like planning a trip or a party. The sender can delete shared links at any time.
What AI Mode 180 Countries Means for Sites Outside the US
If your audience is in one of the new markets and searches in English, AI Mode is now another way for them to search Google. Here is how that works in practice.
Eligibility: No Special Requirements
Google’s documentation on AI features and your website is clear on this. To show as a supporting link in AI Mode or AI Overviews, a page must be indexed. It must also be eligible to show in Google Search with a snippet (the short text preview under a result).
There are no extra technical requirements, no special markup and no AI-specific file to add. Meeting the requirements also does not promise you will be shown. That is the same as with classic results.
So a site in one of the new markets does not need to “apply” for AI Mode. If your pages are indexed and allowed to show snippets, they are already in the running.
Query Fan-Out Changes Which Pages Get Picked
Google’s documentation says AI Mode and AI Overviews may run several related searches across subtopics and data sources to build one response. Google calls this query fan-out.
As a result, AI Mode can show a wider mix of pages than a classic results page. A page that ranks on page two for the main query might still be cited, because it answers one specific subtopic well.
This helps pages that answer clear questions within a topic. It helps them more than pages that only target one big keyword.
Your Snippet Controls Still Apply
The same preview controls you use for regular Search decide what AI Mode can show from your pages. These include nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex.
Be careful with these. A page set to nosnippet can’t be shown with a snippet. That also takes it out of the running as a supporting link in AI features. If you block content to “protect” it from AI Mode, you can lose visibility in the regular results at the same time.
Google-Extended is a different thing. Google’s documentation points to it for limiting the use of your content in Google’s other AI systems. Robots.txt rules for Googlebot and the preview controls above are what decide how your content shows in Search, including AI Mode.
How Search Console Counts AI Mode Traffic
Since June 2025, AI Mode data has been included in the Search Console Performance report. There is no separate AI Mode filter. Clicks and impressions are mixed into the “Web” search type along with everything else.
Google’s Search Console help pages set out the rules:
- Clicks: clicking a link to an outside page in AI Mode counts as a click.
- Impressions: the normal impression rules apply.
- Position: position in AI Mode is worked out the same way as on a regular Google results page.
- Follow-up questions: a follow-up inside AI Mode counts as a new query. The impressions, positions and clicks in that new response are counted against the new query.
- Search Labs: data from Labs experiments is not included in Search Console.
This leads to two practical results. First, AI Mode use in your country will show up in your existing totals, so you can’t cleanly separate it. Second, the US-only features announced this week, like agentic reservations and Labs personalization, won’t show in Search Console at all, because they run through Labs.
The follow-up rule is worth watching too. If people in your market start using AI Mode a lot, you may see more long, chatty and oddly specific queries in your reports. These are often follow-up questions counted as new searches.
What Changes You Might See in Your Data
I would not expect a sudden, big shift on day one. English-language searchers in the new markets can now use AI Mode, but they still have to choose it. Habits tend to change slowly.
Signs I’d watch over the coming weeks:
- Impressions going up for informational queries without clicks going up too.
- New, longer queries in the Performance report that read like conversation, not keywords.
- Pages getting impressions for questions they only answer in one section. This may be a sign of fan-out citations.
- Changes in engagement and conversion rate on organic landing pages. You can see these in analytics, but not in Search Console.
Google’s own documentation says clicks from results pages with AI features tend to be higher quality. It says visitors are more likely to spend more time on the site. I’d test that claim against your own data rather than just accept it. Tracking conversions and engagement by landing page is how to do it.
If you have not set that up yet, our guide to building GA4 reports for organic search traffic walks you through it.
How to Prepare Your Site for AI Mode in Your Market
None of this needs a new playbook. Google’s advice for AI features is the same as for Search in general. The difference is that weak basics now hurt you in two places at once.
- Check that your key pages are indexed and can show snippets. Use the URL Inspection tool on your most important pages. Look for stray
noindex,nosnippetor tightmax-snippetvalues. This is always my first check. - Make sure nothing blocks Googlebot. Review robots.txt and any CDN, firewall or hosting bot protection. Google points to CDNs and hosting providers as places where crawling can be blocked by accident.
- Answer the sub-questions, not just the main query. Because of query fan-out, a page that covers a buyer’s follow-up questions has more chances to be cited. Use clear headings and put the direct answer near the top of each section.
- Keep important content in text. Prices, specs, opening hours and policies hidden in images or behind clicks are harder to use. Add good images and video where they help, but keep the text.
- Make structured data match the visible page. Markup that disagrees with the text on the page does not help in classic results or AI features.
- Update Merchant Center and Business Profile data. Google’s documentation names both. For local and ecommerce businesses, this information feeds the answers AI Mode gives about products, places and availability.
- Set a baseline now. Note your current clicks, impressions and CTR by country in Search Console. Then you can compare in a month or two.
A Note for Local Businesses
The reservation feature is US-only and Ultra-only today. But the direction is clear. Google has named appointment and ticketing partners and said those categories are next.
If you take bookings, I’d check that your availability is correct on the booking platforms you use. Also make sure your Google Business Profile is complete. Our local SEO checklist covers the profile basics.
A Note for non-English Sites
If you run a site in another language in one of the new markets, English AI Mode probably won’t change much for you yet. Google has said more languages are coming. So the best use of this time is to get the basics above in order before it reaches your language.
What Not to Do
- Don’t fall for “AI Mode optimization” shortcuts. Google says no special markup or file is needed. Anyone selling a technical trick for AI Mode is selling something Google’s own docs say does not exist.
- Don’t block snippets in a panic. Limiting snippets cuts your visibility in regular Search too.
- Don’t read one week of data as a trend. Rollouts take time to reach everyone, and user habits change slowly.
- Don’t expect a separate AI Mode report. For now, Search Console mixes it into the Web totals.
Conclusion
The AI Mode 180 countries expansion makes Google’s chat-style search available to English-language searchers almost everywhere outside the EU. The agentic, personalization and sharing features stay in the US for now. For site owners, eligibility is the same as for regular Search. The traffic shows up mixed into your existing Web data.
My advice after the AI Mode 180 countries rollout is to record a baseline by country now, so you can see the effect as more people use it. If you want more room to study query-level changes than the Search Console interface gives you, our guide to Search Console bulk data export to BigQuery shows how to set it up.
