Expansion of AI Overviews and AI Mode at Google I/O 2025 (Google)
At Google I/O 2025, Google expands AI Overviews to more than 200 countries and 40 languages, opens AI Mode to all users in the United States and integrates a version of Gemini 2.5 directly into search.
Key points
- AI Overviews expand to more than 200 countries and 40 languages, including French.
- AI Mode, the conversational search experience, opens to all users in the United States.
- A version of Gemini 2.5 is integrated directly at the heart of Google search.
- Generative search becomes the norm on most markets, including French-speaking ones.
Analysis
With this expansion, Google confirms that AI-generated answers are no longer a limited experiment but a permanent layer of search on a global scale. For French-speaking markets (France, Belgium, Luxembourg), this means that the first answer seen by the user can be an AI summary that synthesizes and cites a limited number of sources, ahead of the classic blue links.
The direct consequence is a redistribution of traffic and attention: appearing in an AI Overview or being cited by AI Mode becomes as important as ranking on the first page. Answer engine optimization (AEO) moves from the status of an option to that of a pillar, on the same level as traditional SEO.
What to do
- Monitor on your strategic queries the appearance of AI Overviews in French and identify which sources are cited there.
- Structure content into clear and self-contained answers (definitions, lists, FAQ, structured data) to maximize the chances of being reused.
- Track the evolution of organic traffic per query to measure the effect of AI answers on clicks and adapt high-stakes pages.
Generative search becomes widespread on a global scale. AEO becomes essential in most markets, including French-speaking ones.