Google Search to route complex queries directly to AI Mode, bypassing Google Search

Jonathon Heard, Industry Head, Insurance at Google, spoke at Simply Business headquarters in London yesterday and told the audience that Google Search will soon route complex queries entered into the Google Search box directly into AI Mode, bypassing Google Search completely.

Plus, he also said that Google is indeed working on breaking out better reporting in Google Search Console for AI Mode and AI Overviews.

Bypassing Google Search. Jonathon Heard said, “with Gemini 3, we’re gonna auto route complex queries through to AI mode automatically. So they’re live in the US at the minute they’re being tested.”

An audience member then asked Jonathon Heard, “When you say auto group, do you mean if somebody searches for a query in normal Google search, could it automatically be go into AI Mode?”

Jonathon Heard confirmed by saying, “Yeah, absolutely.” In which that audience memeber replied, “Okay. So the, That’s quite a big, That’s quite a big change.” Heard replied that Google announced this with the Gemini 3 launch. Google did write, “And in the coming weeks, we’re also enhancing our automatic model selection in Search with Gemini 3. This means Search will intelligently route your most challenging questions in AI Mode and AI Overviews to this frontier model.”

Google once hinted this before, when Google AI Mode may become the default Google Search. But then Google said no, this is not happening and backtracked some of those comments. Robby Stein of Google told us then, “wouldn’t read too much into this. we’re focusing on making it easy to access AI Mode for those who want it.”

AI Mode & AI Overview Search Console data. Simon Schnieders, Founder of Blue Array, who was moderating the panel, asked Jonathon Heard of Google, “Did. I, did I miss He, by the way, you think that we’re gonna be getting, uh, AI mode AI, sorry, AI mode, AI views split out in Search Console at some future stage.”

Right now, Google lumps AI Overviews and AI Mode data directly into Search Console’s overall web search data. Making it impossible to see how well a site performs within AI Mode, specifically, or in the AI Overview feature.

Heard replied that Google is looking at it and later explained that the only way forward, based on the changes to Google Search and the interfaces, is to provide new data. Heard said, “You are not allowed to ask questions. Sure. That so that was so bad. We’re looking at it. Okay. Yeah, We’re looking at it as a minute.”

Simon Schnieders responded, “Okay. That’s good to, because you are the first Googler that’s ever mentioned that, so yeah. I’ll write that down.”

Heard replied:

“Yeah, yeah. It’s moving really, really fast. Clearly, clearly, as we experiment with this stuff, we’re also gonna have to change the reporting structure. It’s moving really, really fast. Clearly, clearly, as we experiment with this stuff, we’re also gonna have to chan that sits underneath it. And so, you know, AI Mode is launched here, is powered by Gemini 2.5 at the minute, once we start to auto route some of those queries. And I think that that’s then an interesting question for what we do about how we help businesses understand where the traffic is going and what the sources of those are. So we are looking at it, as I said, it’s a, it’s a constant conversation. We’ve not announced anything publicly yet, but you can sort of see that the reporting structures that have existed for a while would have to adapt for the new world that we’re moving into.”

Here is the video of the event:

Why we care. When Google bypasses Google Search and send people directly to Google AI Mode, that will change the searcher experience in a massive way. It will also change how searchers find your websites, content, products and services.

Plus, Google has been avoiding talking about AI Mode and AI Overview data in Search Console since it demo’ed SGE, the previous name for AI Overviews.