Google Tests Hiding AI Mode; Its Tab Was Missing on 2 of 14 Mobile SERPs We Pulled

Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, 14 November 2026.

Google appears to be testing a version of Search with fewer doors into AI Mode. On 13 November, SEO consultant Glenn Gabe posted screenshots of a results page with no AI Mode tab in the tab bar and no "Ask anything" follow-up box under the AI Overview, asking whether Google was "really testing removing AI Mode". Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz reported the sighting the same day and said he could not reproduce it. Google has not commented.

To see how far the test reaches, we pulled 51 logged-out Google results pages for 31 queries on 14 November, across US desktop, UK desktop and US mobile, and checked the page HTML for each AI Mode entry point. Desktop showed no sign of the test. On mobile, the AI Mode tab was missing from 2 of 14 pages, and both queries showed the tab again when we fetched them a second time.

Key findings

• Desktop kept every entry point: all 37 desktop pages (31 US, 6 UK) carried the AI Mode tab, and every desktop AI Overview rendered in the HTML came with the "Ask anything" box.
• Two mobile pages had no AI Mode tab: "best credit cards for travel" and "how do vaccines work" opened with a tab bar that skipped AI Mode entirely.
• The gap did not follow the query: a repeat fetch of both queries minutes later showed the AI Mode tab in its usual first position, which points to a test assigned per session rather than per query.
• Mobile uses a button, not a box: all 11 mobile AI Overviews we could check ended with a "Dive deeper in AI Mode" button; only 2 also carried the "Ask anything" box.

What the two pages without the tab looked like

On a standard mobile results page in our sample, AI Mode sits first in the row of filters, ahead of Shopping, Images, Videos and Forums. On the two pages without it, the row began with other filters, and the HTML contained no link to the AI Mode results view (the udm=50 parameter Google uses for it) anywhere on the page.

Query (US mobile)	First fetch	Repeat fetch
best credit cards for travel	No AI Mode tab; row opens with "See more", Shopping, Short videos, Images	AI Mode tab present, first in row
how do vaccines work	No AI Mode tab; row opens with Videos, Images, Short videos, Forums	AI Mode tab present, first in row

The first-fetch page for "best credit cards for travel" still showed an AI Overview and its "Dive deeper in AI Mode" button, so in that session AI Mode was reachable from the overview but not from the tab bar. That matches the pattern in earlier reports: Google seems to be testing the placement of AI Mode shortcuts, while AI Overviews stay in place.

Desktop and mobile handle the follow-up differently

The "Ask anything" box Gabe found missing is mainly a desktop element in our data. Desktop AI Overviews ended with the box every time, in both the US and the UK. Mobile AI Overviews almost always swapped it for a single button that hands the searcher over to AI Mode. So a mobile page without the box is the normal layout, not evidence of the test.

We could not evaluate the follow-up box on 10 pages where Google loaded the AI Overview after the initial page load, and 4 pages had no AI Overview at all (local, weather and navigational searches). Those pages still count toward the tab figures.

A month of sightings

Friday's report is the latest in a run of AI Mode placement tests spotted since Alphabet's third-quarter results:

• 28 October: on the Q3 call, Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said strong AI Mode query growth weighed on Search revenue because of the "lower monetization we were seeing in AI Mode", according to the call transcript. We covered the Q3 Search revenue figures at the time.
• 30 October: a single user post reported the AI Mode button missing from the search bar, according to PPC Land, which noted that Search Engine Roundtable could not reproduce it.
• 4 November: NewsBytes reported that a user had seen the AI Mode button removed from the search bar in incognito mode, describing it as a limited experiment.
• 10 November: Android Headlines, relaying a Search Engine Watch report, described a version of Search without the AI Mode tab, seen in private browsing, with the filters starting at All.
• 13 November: Gabe's screenshots added the missing "Ask anything" box under AI Overviews to the list.

None of these reports carried a Google statement, and none described AI Overviews being removed.

Why Google might test this

Google has not explained the tests, so any reason is speculation. Two readings circulated among SEOs on Friday. One ties the tests to money: Google told investors in October that AI Mode monetizes below classic Search, which gives it a reason to measure how many searchers miss the shortcuts when they disappear. The other is that AI Mode is being folded into a single interface. In his Q3 remarks, Sundar Pichai said Google is building "one seamless experience across AI Overviews, AI Mode, and traditional Search". If that is the direction, a separate tab matters less, and the mobile "Dive deeper" button already works as the main hand-off on phones in our sample.

Scale makes either change significant. Google says AI Mode has more than 1 billion monthly users, according to a September report in Time, which also described the AI Overview follow-up bar becoming more visible. This week Google also moved Search to its Gemini 4 Hydrogen model, so the AI layer itself is changing alongside the entry points.

What this means for SEO teams

• Treat the test as small for now. Two of 51 pages in our pull lacked the tab, both on mobile, and neither result repeated. That is not enough to move AI Mode traffic in aggregate, but it can add noise to week-on-week comparisons.
• Do not read a missing "Ask anything" box on mobile as a test. In our data the mobile layout normally uses the "Dive deeper in AI Mode" button instead. Note the device before logging a sighting.
• Keep AI Overview citations as the priority. Every version of the test reported so far leaves AI Overviews in place, and on mobile the overview is now the main route into AI Mode. Pages cited there keep their exposure whether or not the tab survives.
• Check rank tracking assumptions. If your tracker records AI Mode presence from the tab bar, a session placed in the test will look like AI Mode was unavailable. Repeat suspicious checks before reporting them. Our earlier work on link changes in AI Mode covers how those answers cite sources.

Methodology

Between 01:17 and 01:21 UTC on 14 November 2026 we requested 51 logged-out Google results pages through a SERP API: 31 US desktop (28 with a national US location, 3 local searches set to Austin, Texas), 6 UK desktop on google.co.uk and 14 US mobile, including two repeat fetches of the mobile queries that lacked the tab. The 31 queries covered informational, commercial, transactional, local, navigational and long conversational searches. For each page we downloaded the raw HTML Google returned and checked three things: an AI Mode link (udm=50) labelled "AI Mode" in the filter row; a text box with the placeholder "Ask anything" inside the AI Overview; and the "Dive deeper in AI Mode" button. Follow-up counts include only pages where the AI Overview was in the initial HTML (26 desktop, 11 mobile). We did not test logged-in sessions, other countries or the Google app. We also fetched the google.com homepage once from our cloud server and found Google Search and I'm Feeling Lucky buttons but no AI Mode button; that server's location was not controlled, so we do not count it as evidence either way.

Conclusion

Google is testing Search pages with fewer AI Mode shortcuts, and our 51-page pull caught it twice, both times on mobile and both times gone on a repeat fetch. Desktop pages in the US and UK kept the AI Mode tab and the "Ask anything" box on every page we could check. Until Google says otherwise, this looks like a narrow, session-level experiment rather than a retreat from AI Mode, and AI Overviews remain the surface that decides whether a page gets seen.

Questions and answers

Is Google removing AI Mode from Search?

Google has not said so. It appears to be testing pages without the AI Mode tab and without the "Ask anything" box under AI Overviews for some searchers, and has not commented on the reports. In our pull of 51 logged-out results pages on 14 November 2026, the tab was missing on 2 of 14 mobile pages and on none of 37 desktop pages.

Do AI Overviews disappear in the test?

No report so far describes AI Overviews being removed. In our sample, one of the two mobile pages without the AI Mode tab still showed an AI Overview with a "Dive deeper in AI Mode" button.

Why is the Ask anything box missing under AI Overviews on my phone?

In our data that is the normal mobile layout. All 11 mobile AI Overviews we could check ended with a "Dive deeper in AI Mode" button, and only 2 also showed the "Ask anything" box. Every desktop AI Overview we checked had the box.

What has Google said about AI Mode revenue?

On Alphabet's Q3 2026 earnings call on 28 October, Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said strong AI Mode query growth weighed on Search revenue because AI Mode monetizes at a lower rate, while adding that most AI Mode queries are incremental.

###