How To Train Google’s AI to Send You Customers

Google's new AI features are quietly stealing the most valuable moment in search. Right when customers are ready to decide. Here's what Nolan's saying. You can rank on page one and still lose. Why? Because if your brand isn't being cited in those AI generated results, you're invisible. You're not in the conversation. Google is no longer just a list of links. It's a curated answer engine. And those answers, they're being pulled from content the algorithm trusts. So this isn't just SEO anymore. This is about training the AI to recognize your brand as a source. It's called Geo Generative Engine Optimization. And if you understand how to reverse engineer it, you'll not only own visibility, you'll build brand authority. While your competitors panic about traffic drops. My name is Neil Patel, and for the last two decades, I've helped companies big and small turn Google into a machine for traffic and revenue. In this video, I'm going to show you how Google's AI overviews and AI mode work with real data, real tools, and they exact strategy we're using right now with thousands of clients to grow their business with Google's new AI layer.

Most people think Google's AI features are shrinking traffic and that's killing SEO. But that's the wrong way to look at it. So what's actually happening? Google is becoming more like ChatGPT. And people are typing in full blown questions more than ever. In fact, question based searches have exploded from 38% to 87% in just eight months. Why did this spike? Because these AI features are making Google way more useful. Consumers have gotten a lot more sophisticated since chatgpt hit the scene. They're not typing in basic keywords anymore. They're asking real questions and expecting full answers right on the search page. But here's the bigger shift no one's talking about. Daily Google searches have jumped from 8.5 billion to 13.7 billion. That's over 5 trillion searches a year and climbing. It's not that more people are online, it's that they're searching more often because Google's answers keep getting better. So while everyone is panicking about losing clicks, the real opportunity. There are more searches than ever and more chances for your brand to be seen if you know how to show up in the new format. I'm going to start with AI overviews because mastering these prepares you for AI mode and everything else Google has planned for its AI ecosystem.

Now here's where most marketers get it completely wrong. They think a taking over every search. But the Data tells a different story Most marketers are freaking out about AI overviews, but they haven't looked at the data. We broke down Google's daily search volume into four types informational, navigational, commercial and transactional. Here's what we found. Informational searches make up nearly 50% of Google, and AI overviews show up 45.9% of the time there. Commercial searches like best CRM for agencies make up just 14.8% of the search volume, but AA overviews appear on 17.8% of those. Navigational searches like Facebook login or just HubSpot pricing make up 34.6% of all searches, but AR views show up on only 1.5% of those. Because users already know where they want to go, there's no need for the AI to step in. And the wildest stat transactional searches you know when someone's ready to buy. They make up only 0.8% of the total volume, but overview show up 6.1% of the time on those keywords. So what does this tell us? AI or reviews are showing up exactly where intent is the highest when people are researching, comparing or about to make a decision. If your content isn't being pulled into those summaries, you're not just missing on traffic, you're missing the exact moment your customer is choosing. This isn't about ranking anymore, it's about becoming the source Google's AI trusts to summarize the buying journey.

If Google's A overviews are the appetizer, then AI mode is a full course meal. Most people are still trying to wrap their head around AI overviews, but they haven't seen what's coming. With Google's AI mode, this isn't just a feature, it's a whole new search experience. Here's what makes AI mode different. It replaces the search results page with a full blown AI conversation. It answers multi part long tail content heavy questions instantly. It pulls from sources you can't always see and often doesn't link back. And it's trained to behave more like a research assistant than a search engine. In traditional SEO you had visibility and control. You could see what people search for, what keywords you ranked for, what pages were showing up. But in AI mode, you type in one question and behind the scenes Google runs 10, 20, even 30 hidden sub searches using something called Query fan out technique. Each subquery is like a separate Google search. The AI runs silently in the background to build its answer. Let me show you what that really means. Say I asked AI mode when is the best time this week to schedule an outdoor engagement photo shoot in the Boston Public Garden. That looks like one search to you, but to the AI, it's dozens of micro searches all stitched together. Behind the scenes, it's likely Searching for Boston Weather forecast this week Best lighting for outdoor photo shoots Boston Public Garden Crowd Times Photography Golden Hour Calculator tips for outdoor engagement shoots in Boston Sunset Times in Boston, June 2025 in the old Google, you would have had to run all those searches manually. It's like a detective piecing it together step by step. AI mode collapses all of the effort into one single answer. It simulates the behavior of a professional web surfer, someone who knows how to dig, compare, and synthesize before giving you a fully researched recommendation. That's what Query fanout really means. Your initial question is the trunk, and Google branches out into dozens of different paths to gather the best info before compressing it all back into one neat, authoritative response. But here's the biggest challenge for marketers today. You don't get a chance to see any of those branches. You don't know what exact queries it ran. You don't see what pages it pulled from. You can't track rankings the way you used to. So unless your content shows up for those hidden sub searches and is trusted enough to get cited, you won't be included in the answer at all. That's why this isn't about ranking anymore. This is about semantic positioning. It's not just the words you see, it's what those words mean in the context and how they connect to related topics. That means it's about training the AI to recognize your brand as a go to source, not just for one keyword, but for the entire thought process behind the question. If you get ahead of this before the rest of your market wakes up, you don't just win clicks, you win mindshare. And now that you understand how AI mode forms its answers, let's talk about what happens when your brand actually gets into those answers.

SEO isn't just a conversion channel anymore. It's a brand discovery channel. We ran the numbers. 90% of consumers say that the first time they ever hear about a company is through an organic Google result. But here's the twist. Only 5% of those people actually buy in that moment. So what happens to the other 14%? They bounce into your email list, into your ad funnel, your social content, or even back to your brand weeks later through word of mouth. That's why I compare modern SEO to a billboard on the freeway or A sponsor logo on a Formula One car. People see you, they recognize you, remember you, and when the timing's right, then they buy. And here's a real kicker. Google's AI search features site brands the same way a news anchor cites trusted sources. If AI drops your name in that summary, you're suddenly front of mind without even getting a click. Put simply, more Google usage is more overviews and AI mode results. More AI results is more brand mentions. More brand mentions. That's trust that spreads everywhere else. That's why getting sighted now is the fastest way to build long term brand equity. While everyone else is selling. Still obsessed with last click attribution. So now that you understand what's at stake, how can you actually get your brand mentioned inside these AI results?

Here's how to reverse engineer Google's AI so it starts citing your content. Simple reverse engineer who the AI is already pulling from. Here's how to do it step by step. Go to neilpatel.com ubersuggest and enter a competitor's domain name. If you don't know one off the top of your head, just Google a keyword in your niche like Best Project Management Tools and grab one of the top results. Paste that URL into ubersuggest and hit search. Now you'll see a few key things. Their estimated search traffic, their top SEO pages, their backlinks and social shares. Pointing to those pages next, scroll down and see their most visited pages. Click View all next to the estimated visits column. This will show you exactly which keywords are driving the most traffic to each page. These are the pages Google already sees as credible, valuable and engaging. And that's exactly the kind of content that gets paid pulled into AI overviews. If a page is ranking and Google's being referenced, it's because Google trusts it. And if you want that kind of trust, you need to study the content that earned it.

Now let's take it a step further and figure out exactly where your brand is missing out. Inside ubersuggest. Go to the left menu and click keyword research similar websites. Now plug in your own domain name. Ubersuggest will scan your site and pull up a list of competing websites. But the real gold here is the keyword gap feature. So what's a keyword gap? It's a list of keywords that your competitors are getting traffic from, but you're not. These keywords are pre validated opportunities. They're already driving traffic and they're already working in your space. And there's a strong chance that they're already showing up in overviews and even AI mode. So instead of guessing what to write about, you're handed a hit list of proven high value topics. The ones that the algorithm already favors. Now all you have to do is build better, deeper and more multimedia rich content around each of those terms. That's how you leapfrog competitors in the AI layer. Not by publishing more, but by being more strategic. Remember, Google's AI doesn't reward volume. It rewards clarity, completeness and credibility. By now you know where the opportunity is and you know how to find the right keywords. So let's talk about the part everyone overlooks.

How do you actually create content that gets cited by Google's AI? Here's the trick to get your website cited by Google's AI. Most people think it's just about writing more blog posts. But Google's AI isn't just scanning text anymore. It's pulling from multi format, multi layered content. Look at the current search results and you'll start to see a pattern. Videos are ranking, images are ranking. Even brand visuals and explainer graphics are showing up inside AI or views in AI mode. Why? Because people consume visual content faster and Google's AI is built to serve people what they prefer. So if you want to get cited, it's not enough to just write an article. You need to enrich the content experience. Add a video that summarizes the key points. Include a diagram that simplifies the concept. Drop in an infographic that makes the data easy to scan. Now take that richer content and pair it with keyword gaps you found earlier in ubersuggest. That's your blueprint. That's how you move from being just another blog post to becoming the trusted source the AI selects to answer the question. And that's what transforms your content into authority and authority into customer demand. SEO didn't die. The rules just changed and almost no one noticed. While most companies are panicking about AI and obsess over lost traffic, the smart ones realized something key. Google's AI features aren't taking visibility away. They're just redistributing it to sources Google trusts most. And right now, there's a narrow window where a few brands are actually optimizing to get sighted. That's the edge. The ones who move now are getting front row visibility in Google's AI layer without ranking number one, without seeing, spending on ads, and sometimes without even being clicked. It's like a formula one card covered in logos. Most people can't name the sponsors, but they've seen those logos 500 times. That's brand memory. And that's what Google's a overviews and AI mode results are doing for brands that show up. You're not just playing for traffic anymore. You're playing for recognition. Because once Google's AI starts citing you, your brand sticks across search, email, ads, social, everywhere. This is the new top of Funnel, and the longer you wait, the harder it gets to break it. So now you know ranking isn't enough. If you want to win in this new version of Google, you need to get cited by AI. And if you want to stay ahead of what's coming next, watch this video next on how you can leverage AI agents to grow your business across all your channels.