Google is rolling out a design refresh that makes sources more visible inside its AI-powered search features. The update adds interactive link previews to AI Overviews and AI Mode, showing article descriptions and images when users hover over citations. It's a direct response to publisher concerns about AI answers burying traffic sources, and comes as the search giant faces mounting pressure to prove its AI features actually send clicks to the web.
Google just made its AI search citations a lot harder to ignore. The company's rolling out a UI update that puts source links front and center in AI Overviews and AI Mode, two features that have sparked heated debates about whether AI-generated answers help or hurt the publishers who create the underlying content.
Robby Stein, vice president of Google Search, announced the changes on X Tuesday, describing a new system where hovering over citations triggers a pop-up window with article descriptions and preview images. The company's also redesigning the link icons themselves to be "more descriptive and prominent" across both desktop and mobile interfaces.
"Our testing shows this new UI is more engaging, making it easier to get to great content across the web," Stein wrote. It's the kind of language Google's been using a lot lately as it tries to reassure publishers that its AI features aren't cannibalizing their traffic.
The timing isn't coincidental. Google's been under fire since it started aggressively pushing AI Overviews - those AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of search results. Publishers have complained that when users get their answers directly from Google's AI, they've got less reason to click through to the actual articles. That's a problem when ad revenue depends on eyeballs landing on pages, not just hovering over citations.
The Verge reports that the update affects both AI Overviews, which show up in traditional search results, and AI Mode, a more conversational interface where users can ask follow-up questions. The distinction matters because AI Mode represents Google's push toward a ChatGPT-style experience, where the search engine becomes more of a dialogue partner than a list of blue links.
