Advice and answers from the Advanced Web Ranking Team
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AI Mode Now Available for Tracking in Advanced Web Ranking for Desktop & Mobile Searches
Monitor Google’s AI Mode with AWR. See which content AI features, monitor competitors, and optimize your SEO strategy with unblended insights.
Google’s AI Mode is rewriting the rules of search, but with the AI Mode search engine now available in AWR, you’ll know whether you or your competitors are riding the AI wave or slipping behind.
Track AI-driven results separately from traditional SERPs, see exactly which content AI selects to answer queries, and fine-tune your SEO strategy with data that tells the full story.
Google’s AI Mode Explained and Why It Matters for SEO
Powered by Gemini models, AI Mode was introduced as a standalone tab in Google Search, listed alongside All, News, Images, and the other options.
When you switch to AI Mode, the traditional SERP layout - which normally may include organic results, featured snippets, local packs, images, and more - is replaced by a conversational, AI-generated summary.
This summary isn’t just a single quick, static answer; it’s built using something called query fan-out, where Google breaks a query into subtopics, conducts multiple related searches in parallel, and then blends everything into a longer-form response.
If Google’s confident in its answer, it will display only the AI-generated summary with citations on the side. If it’s less certain, it will also show traditional web results, but with the AI content still dominating the page. This design encourages users to stay within the AI Mode, meaning fewer clicks through to websites and more competition for on-page visibility.
With the AI Mode era, the focus shifts from ranking at the top part of a traditional SERP to whether Google chooses your content for its synthesized answers.
That shift has real implications. As more users are estimated to turn to AI Mode as they can get what they need quicker and without leaving the results page, traffic and click-through rates from traditional search are likely to drop. The competitors you face here may be completely different from those in standard results, and the intent behind a query can also shift, sometimes expanding to cover related angles you might not have targeted before.
For SEOs, this creates two clear priorities. The first is knowing whether your content is appearing in AI Mode and how its placement changes over time. The second is adapting your strategy to be “AI-friendly,” which often means generating content that is authoritative, well-structured, and comprehensive enough for Google to trust as a source.
Tracking AI Mode with AWR
This is exactly where AWR can help. By adding the AI Mode search engine to your projects, you will gain access to a range of detailed insights, such as:
Keyword Ranking: Comprehensive keyword insights, including position tracking, changes in search intent, and overall AI performance metrics
Competitive Intel: Identify which websites are being favored, track your share of AI Mode search traffic against competitors, see who is outperforming or underperforming, and spot keywords shared among them
Visibility Data: Provides an overview of your website’s overall visibility trends within the AI summary, helping you understand how your presence in search results is evolving over time
Landing Page Monitoring: See how your landing pages perform in the AI summary
Trends: See ranking movement over time and compare performance across multiple update dates
How to set up AI Mode tracking in AWR
AI Mode can only be tracked as a standalone search engine in a project. This setup ensures you can monitor its results separately from traditional SERPs, giving you an unblended, accurate view of your website’s presence in the AI summaries.
You can add both AI Mode Desktop and AI Mode Mobile to a project, but you cannot combine an AI Mode search engine with a traditional search engine (such as Google Universal, Google Organc, etc.) in the same project.
There are two ways to add an AI Mode search engine in AWR:
Create a new project exclusively for AI Mode (recommended approach).
Add the AI Mode search engine to an existing project
This option will remove all existing standard search engines from that project before adding AI Mode. Please note that this is not recommended, as all historical data associated with the previous search engines will be deleted.
You can schedule the AI Mode updates to run:
Weekly - Keep close tabs on trends with fresh weekly data
Biweekly - Balance insights and efficiency with updates every two weeks
Monthly - Track long-term progress with monthly summaries
On-demand updates are also available, allowing you to get the latest data within a maximum of 48 hours since the update was triggered.
AI Mode uses an advanced query mechanism, similar to the Google AIO search engine, to capture data accurately. Due to the complexity of this process, AI Mode consumes twice the units of standard AWR search engines.
The number of units used to update a project also depends on the number of keywords you track and how often you schedule updates. You’ll see the exact unit usage when creating the project or anytime in the Resources section of your account.
Feature availability
AI Mode tracking is included in every AWR plan, including trials, and available within the keyword unit limits, providing immediate access to powerful insights that enhance your SEO strategy.
Do you have any further questions or need more information about this product update? Don't hesitate to get in touch with our dedicated support team.
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