Google AI Mode and AI Overviews for product searches

AI Overviews and AI Mode are the first Google surfaces where a merchant can see product visibility reported inside Merchant Center. This post covers what Google itself documents about them and about product data, as of October 2026, plus the places where you can measure your own products on Google. The Dopbot Index samples only OpenAI's and Perplexity's APIs, so it has no Google numbers.

What are AI Overviews and AI Mode, according to Google?

Google's guide for site owners, last updated December 10, 2025, describes two features. AI Overviews give the gist of a complicated topic and link out for more. Google says they are shown only when its systems judge them additive to classic Search, so they often do not appear. AI Mode is aimed at queries that need exploration, reasoning or complex comparisons, and returns an AI-written response with links to supporting sites.

Both may use what Google calls query fan-out: several related searches across subtopics and data sources, issued to build one response. Google adds that the two features may use different models and techniques, so the set of links each shows will vary. That matters for measurement. A product that appears in one is not evidence about the other.

What does a product page need to be included?

Google's answer is blunt. The guide says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special optimizations. To be eligible as a supporting link, a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet. It also says that meeting every requirement does not guarantee crawling, indexing or serving.

The same guide lists the fundamentals it still considers worthwhile. Several are product-page work:

• Crawling allowed in robots.txt and by any CDN or hosting infrastructure.
• Important content available as text, not only in images.
• Structured data that matches the visible text on the page.
• Merchant Center and Business Profile information that is up to date.

Google also says you do not need new machine-readable files, AI text files or markup, and that no special schema.org structured data is needed for these features. For the crawl side, see AI crawlers and robots.txt, where Google's tokens are in the table, and for markup see structured data for AI shopping.

How does shopping in AI Mode work?

Google's shopping announcements are the primary source, and they are dated, so read them as snapshots.

• May 20, 2025. Google introduced a new AI Mode shopping experience that brings together Gemini capabilities with its Shopping Graph, with a query fan-out example for a travel bag suited to a given trip. It said the Shopping Graph held more than 50 billion product listings, with more than 2 billion refreshed every hour.
• November 13, 2025. Google described a shopping upgrade in AI Mode, with responses that organize price, reviews and inventory information, shoppable images, and comparison tables that draw on reviews. It said AI Mode is powered by the Shopping Graph, repeated the same listing figures, and said shopping features were available to all Gemini app users in the U.S. It also said agentic checkout was starting to roll out in Search, including AI Mode, for eligible U.S. merchants, with Google buying on the merchant's site through Google Pay only after the shopper confirms.

Two points for a brand. The details Google says AI Mode responses organize are price, reviews and inventory. And everything above is described for the U.S. in those posts. We did not find a Google page that gives the same detail for other countries.

Where does Merchant Center fit?

Merchant Center is one of several ways Google gets product information, and this table puts them side by side.

The conversational attributes are worth a look if your products need explaining. Google says they are optional, complement the main specification, and you need not repeat what is already in the description, highlight or detail attributes. The full field comparison across Google and OpenAI feeds is in product feeds for AI shopping.

What about checkout on Google?

Google's Merchant Center help describes a checkout protocol, the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), with a checkout feature for select merchants. The page applies to products with eligibility in the United States, Canada and Australia. Merchants stay the seller of record. Customers pay with Google Pay using details saved in Google Wallet. Only listings carrying the native_commerce(checkout_eligibility) attribute show the Buy button.

A May 20, 2026 Google post said shoppers can now use the Universal Cart to check out with Google Pay at major retailers, while its body text describes some select checkout features as coming soon, and said UCP-powered checkout will roll out across Canada and Australia in the coming months. Shopify's help center says that for stores meeting its requirements, direct checkout in Google AI Mode and Gemini is rolling out gradually to customers in the United States, Canada and Australia. If a store switches off direct checkout, customers can still discover products and are sent to the store to buy. Shopify also says that products reach this channel through the Google & YouTube channel or Merchant Center, so the product data route is the same one described above.

How can you measure Google?

This is where Google has gone further than the other platforms we cover. Its Merchant Center help describes an AI performance insights report that covers conversational queries with shopping intent on AI Mode and AI Overviews.

The competitor set in the report is the one Merchant Center defines, and you cannot change it. It is not a measure of share of answer against the brands you care about, and share of voice there depends on Google's definition of impressions. Use it as Google's view of Google.

For manual checks, use five shopper question types, the set the index's monthly update uses from November 2026 (best overall, a budget with a ceiling, premium, a specific use, and a buying-advice question that names no brand), and record products shown, merchants, and the price and stock displayed against your Merchant Center data. Repeat on different days. The free manual method covers the sample sizes.

Can Dopbot's numbers tell you anything about Google?

Not about Google itself. In our October 2026 sample, OpenAI's API with web search (gpt-6-luna) linked a retailer domain from our hand-made list in 17.6% of its 800 answers, while Perplexity's Agent API with the Sonar model (perplexity/sonar) had one in its retrieved source list in 76.7% of its 787 answers. The list is incomplete, so the true shares are higher. Two engines, two very different source patterns, and each recorded differently. A third system with its own index, its own product graph and its own feed is not predicted by either. So measure Google separately, with Merchant Center's AI performance report and manual checks, and read our engine numbers only as a sign that engines differ. Retail listings and their role are covered in retail listings in AI shopping answers.

What is still unknown?

• How Merchant Center data and crawled pages compare for a given product in AI Mode. Google describes both as routes to its shopping surfaces and says to keep Merchant Center information current, and it gives no weights.
• What the AI performance report's share of voice implies for sales. Google gives a definition, not an outcome.
• Non-U.S. detail. Google's shopping posts describe the U.S., and several programs list a few countries.
• Rollout status. Google's pages use words such as rolling out and select merchants. Check your own account before planning around a feature.

Frequently asked questions

Does blocking Google-Extended remove my store from AI Mode?

Google does not say so. It says Google-Extended does not affect a site's inclusion in Google Search, and its AI features guide ties AI Overviews and AI Mode eligibility to Search indexing and snippets. Google names robots.txt directives for Googlebot as the control for crawling for Search, with nosnippet and noindex controls to limit what is shown. Google-Extended relates to training of future Gemini models and to grounding in Gemini Apps and Grounding with Google Search on Vertex AI. Check the crawler explainer before changing either rule.

Do I need Merchant Center to appear in AI Mode?

Google's guide says to keep Merchant Center information current as a fundamental, and its free listings page says crawled products can appear without markup or a feed. We found no Google statement that a feed is required for AI Mode, and none that a page without a feed is treated the same. Treat Merchant Center as the route you control.