Google rolled an important change with how AI Mode works yesterday and it can have a big impact on the experience for desktop users. Now when users click a link in AI Mode, they will not be taken directly to the publisher website (sort of). Chrome will open the site side-by-side in a quasi split view. Note, Chrome recently rolled out an official split view option, but this is a variant of that. So when clicking links, a user will see the page they want to visit on the right while AI Mode remains open on the left.
Yes, AI Mode never leaves the scene.
On the one hand, some might find this beneficial since you can continue your conversation, but focused on the page at hand. But on the flip side, some publishers might not like users that wanted to view their content continuing to see AI Mode where they can quickly click to visit other citations that were provided in the original answer (or citations that are presented during subsequent follow-up questions).
Here is what it looks like in action. When searching for information about how the new automated ball-strike challenge system has been going in MLB this season so far, I clicked a link for mlb.com. The page opens in split view on the right while AI Mode remains open on the left. AI Mode also triggers a notification explaining I can ask about the open tab.
You can then ask follow-up questions about the page in AI Mode.
AI Mode follows you throughout your Search journey:
And if you click a link on the page you are visiting, AI Mode continues to stay open. So it's there for your entire journey from the SERPs. Yep, you now have an AI companion with you the entire time you are researching a topic. We know Google has explained that AI Mode is the future of Search, so this is a big move towards that in my opinion. If people feel comfortable with AI Mode following them around the web, and always there for questions, then this is a huge win for Google.
Here is one of the videos Google provided in its post about the change showing how it can work when researching products:
Impact To ChatGPT and other AI chatbots:
This is clearly a blow to ChatGPT and other AI search platforms. Google's vast ecosystem is an important advantage in the AI wars and Google is smart to leverage that ecosystem to gain more AI users. Billions of people use Google Search and now AI Mode can follow them around the web always there to answer questions, compare products, dig deeper, etc.Impact To Page Views and Tracking
Some people have been asking if the pages being triggered in split view register a page view and if there are other tracking issues with the new setup. The pages are working normally from a tracking perspective from what I can see. I see those visits showing in Google Analytics, they are loading in Chrome like any other page would, etc. So that's not really the concern. The bigger concern is the change in UX, search behavior, etc. Again, users are not visiting a page downstream like they used to (at least on desktop). The viewport is being shared by AI Mode and the destination page. Again, that's a huge change.Impact To Navboost, or what I'm now calling "DriftBoost"
One other note that's important to cover. With AI search experiences at Google, including AI Overviews and AI Mode, I'm sure Google has had to adjust how it measures user interaction signals. Google has an important system called Navboost that tracks 13 months of user interaction signals and can impact rankings. Well, AIOs and AI Mode change the behavior of users for sure, and now this split view experience will impact the experience even more for desktop users.
I'd love to know how Google is adjusting for this algorithmically... To me, it's not Navboost anymore, it's more like DriftBoost where users drift from page to page with AI Mode always open. In addition, when answers are provided in AIOs or AI Mode, there's less need to click to visit content downstream. Navboost cannot be calculated the same way anymore (in my opinion). Anyway, I just wanted to bring that up since Navboost is a great way for Google to understand happy versus unhappy users. And "happy" is now a bit different than before engagement-wise.
AI Mode continues to evolve.
Google's new AI Mode split screen experience is live now. I recommend testing it for important queries leading your site. And again, this is all part of the roadmap leading to AI Mode as the default search experience. What's next on the roadmap? Only Google knows. :)GG
