Google’s AI Mode is increasingly citing Google itself — and often sending users back to another Google search, according to new SE Ranking research.

Why we care. AI search is meant to surface the best sources on the web. If Google increasingly cites itself, you may see fewer direct links and less traffic as more users stay inside Google.

The details. Google.com was the most cited source in AI Mode answers, accounting for 17.42% of all citations, SE Ranking found.

• That makes Google.com the most referenced domain — more than the next six domains combined: YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Amazon, Indeed, and Zillow.

Accelerating trend. In June 2025, Google cited itself in just 5.7% of AI Mode answers. That share is now tripled.

• Nearly one in five AI citations now comes from Google. Including YouTube, Google-controlled properties account for roughly 20% of sources.

Self-preferencing on steroids. AI Overviews already link heavily to Google properties like Maps, Images, and YouTube. AI Mode appears to extend that approach by pushing users deeper into Google’s ecosystem, often through additional search results rather than external sites.

• This keeps users interacting with Google surfaces where ads, reviews, and other monetized content appear.

What changed. Earlier AI Mode research showed Google mainly citing Google Business Profiles. That’s no longer the case:

• 59% of Google citations now point to traditional Google search results.
• 36.1% still reference Google Business Profiles.
• Smaller shares link to Google Support (1.7%), Google Flights (0.1%), and other Google properties.
• In many cases, AI Mode citations now show a mini search results panel beside the answer — effectively turning the citation into another search experience.

Industry differences. Google dominates citations across most topics. Some niches rely on Google even more:

• Travel: 53.18% of citations
• Entertainment & hobbies: 48.74% of citations
• Real estate: 30.54% of citations

The only category where Google wasn’t the top source was Careers and Jobs, where Indeed appeared 3.1x more often than Google.

About the data. SE Ranking analyzed 68,313 keywords across 20 industries and more than 1.3 million AI Mode citations to measure how often Google.com appears as a cited source.

The report. Is Google stealing your clicks in AI Mode? (1.3M+ citations analyzed)

OpenAI is backing away from putting checkout directly inside ChatGPT. Instead, purchases will shift to retailer apps that connect to ChatGPT, The Information reported.

Why we care. ChatGPT aims to be more than a discovery engine. Right now, though, product discovery inside ChatGPT is gaining traction faster than purchases. That suggests AI-powered shopping is only influencing the consideration stage (at least for now), not driving conversions.

What happened. OpenAI had planned to let shoppers buy products directly from listings in ChatGPT search results. Instead, an OpenAI spokesperson said that Instant Checkout is moving to Apps, where purchases happen inside connected services rather than natively in ChatGPT.

• The company will now prioritize product search and discovery inside ChatGPT.
• It will also keep working with Stripe on the Agentic Commerce Protocol to support app-based transactions.

What changed: OpenAI found that users research products in ChatGPT but don’t complete purchases there. Only a small number of merchants were actively using native ChatGPT checkout, according to the report.

• In September, OpenAI positioned Instant Checkout as a big commerce opportunity. At the time, it said U.S. users could buy from Etsy sellers inside ChatGPT, with plans to expand to Shopify merchants, add multi-item carts, and roll out beyond the U.S.

Meanwhile. Shopify president Harley Finkelstein said this week that only about a dozen Shopify merchants were using AI tools, despite Shopify supporting integrations with ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot. That’s tiny relative to Shopify’s overall merchant base.

What to watch. Can OpenAI make ChatGPT more valuable as a shopping discovery engine without owning the final transaction? Also, how does OpenAI’s commerce strategy intersect with its advertising ambitions? If transactions stay outside ChatGPT, monetizing product discovery through ads could become even more important.

Why this is happening. Two forces are slowing agentic commerce, according to Leigh McKenzie, director of online visibility at Semrush: infrastructure and trust. Real-time catalog normalization across tens of millions of SKUs is a decade-scale problem Google already solved with Merchant Center, and consumers still default to checkout flows they trust — Apple Pay, Google Wallet, and Amazon one-click.

The report. OpenAI Scales Back Shopping Plans for ChatGPT (subscription required)

Google’s Liz Reid, VP and head of Search, drew a clearer line between Google Search and Gemini but said it’s still unclear whether the products will converge, diverge further, or be superseded.

The big picture. Reid said Search is an information product focused on helping people connect with the web, while Gemini is centered more on assisting with productivity and creation. She added that the boundaries are fluid, especially as AI products evolve quickly and agentic experiences reshape how people use the internet.

What she’s saying. In short, Reid said Search and Gemini share technology but have different product “north stars.” They could overlap more over time, but the eventual long-term direction is still open. Here’s what she said in an interview on Access Podcast:

• “I don’t know the answer is the short answer.”
• “I think what we see is some areas they’re converging more and some areas they’re diverging more, right? And like and so what are they going to net out? Like do the areas that diverged eventually all come or do the areas that diverge become even bigger over time? I think we’ll see.”
• “So I don’t know in in all honesty, but I think we are right now at a point where depending on what angle you look at, you’d think they’re getting closer or they’re getting further apart.”
• “Who knows, maybe agents will mean like the right product is neither of the two of them is a third product altogether that they merge into. I don’t know yet.”

Gemini vs. Search. Here’s the distinction Reid made:

• On Gemini: “Gemini’s focus is on sort of being this assistant and so it tends to lean in more heavily on things like productivity or creation, right?”
• On Search: “Search is more information based and it believes that often in those information use cases you also want to connect and hear from other people. And so how do you bring out the web?”

Agents and the web’s future. Reid also said Google expects a future with more agent-to-agent internet activity, not just humans browsing directly.

• “I certainly think the there will be a world in which sort of agents are doing a lot of interaction on the internet, not just people.”
• “I do think probably means there’s a world in which a lot of agents are talking with each other, and not just with humans going forward as we evolve.”

Google vs. ChatGPT. Reid pushed back on the idea that AI is a simple winner-take-all battle between Google and ChatGPT.

• “I don’t know, by the way, that we’re going to end up in a world where there’s only one product, right?”
• “I think what we’re seeing is like simultaneously people are adopting more tools and search is growing, right? because the the possibility of the tech is just allowing many more questions.”

Trusted sources. Reid also said Google wants to do more to surface sources users trust or pay for.

• “I think one thing Google is trying to do a lot more of and we’ve taken small steps so far but want to do more. How do you help when there is that relationship?”

She pointed to Google’s Preferred Sources feature and broader subscription-aware experiences:

• “If you love this source and you do have a relationship with it then that content should surface more easily for you on Google.”
• “We should surface the the one that they’re paying for and not the six that they can’t get access to more.”

Why we care. Reid’s comments suggest Google hasn’t settled on Search’s long-term role in an AI-first ecosystem. So keep watching closely as AI assistants, agents, and search results evolve.

The interview. What happens to Google when AI answers everything? with Liz Reid

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