Analyses through 2026 keep finding that only about 14 percent of URLs cited in Google's AI Mode also appear in AI Overview citations. They are separate optimisation targets: Overviews favour concise extractable answers on established pages, AI Mode favours depth it can reason over during longer sessions.
It is tempting to treat Google's AI surfaces as one thing. The citation data says otherwise. AI Overviews are compiled summaries attached to a classic query. AI Mode is a conversation that plans, searches and synthesises across turns. They read the web differently, and they reward different pages.
Overviews lift tight, self-contained answers: a question heading, a complete first paragraph, clean structure. AI Mode sessions go deeper and reward comprehensive pages that survive follow-up questions: specifications, pricing logic, process detail, verifiable facts.
One site, two shapes
The efficient structure is a hub-and-spoke: short answer-first pages targeting the questions Overviews serve, linked to deep guides AI Mode can chew on. Both layers share the same entity data and schema.
This is also simply good information architecture for humans, which is the pattern with all durable AEO work: the machine-readable version of your site and the genuinely useful version converge.