Google AI Mode and local search: what it means for dentists
Google AI Mode has been live in the UK since July 2025. It answers local questions with a written reply, place cards and links, and the facts it uses come mostly from things your practice already controls.
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Google AI Mode is the conversational part of Google Search, and patients use it for local search the same way they use the normal results: "dentist near me open Saturday", "private dentist in Macclesfield for a nervous patient", "how much is composite bonding near me". For a dentist, the important point is that AI Mode builds its answer from Google's own information about local businesses and from websites it can read. So most of what decides whether your practice appears is already in your hands.
What is Google AI Mode?
Google describes AI Mode as its "most powerful AI search experience". According to Google Search Help, it lets you ask anything, get an AI-powered response and go deeper with follow-up questions. You can type, speak or use an image.
Google launched AI Mode in the UK on 28 July 2025, as a tab on the Search results page and in the Google app for Android and iOS. Google says it uses a "query fan-out" technique, issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources at the same time and bringing the results together into one answer.
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Every practice competing with yours on one map, sized by the share of local search each one holds, re-checked every week. The sample town shows the whole thing now, with no sign-up.
Run on our own practice first: ninth of the 14 practices measured in its town in May, first of 18 in September, on UK-wide search value. Page-one keywords: 6 in May, 194 in September.
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How to use Google AI Mode
Google's help page gives three ways in:
- Go to google.com/ai.
- Go to google.com and tap or click AI Mode.
- Open the Google app and choose AI Mode from the home screen.
After any normal search you can also select the AI Mode tab on the results page. Since May 2026, Google says you can ask a follow-up question straight from an AI Overview, which takes you into the same conversational experience.
How to turn on AI Mode in Google search, and why it might not be showing
There is nothing to switch on in the UK. If you do not see the AI Mode tab, update the Google app, try google.com/ai directly, and check the countries and languages on Google's help page. Google has rolled AI Mode out gradually, so it can appear for some people before others.
How AI Mode answers a local search for a dentist
Ask AI Mode for a dentist in your town and it typically gives you a written summary, a set of places and links to websites. Google said in May 2025 that AI Mode was adding visual place cards where, for local businesses, "you can quickly see info like ratings, reviews, and opening hours", with options to call or get directions. Google said this is made possible by its "up-to-date info about local businesses".
For a dental practice, that local business information is your Google Business Profile. The rating, review count, hours, phone number and categories in those cards come from there. The written part of the answer draws on web pages Google has indexed, which is where your treatment pages, fees page and NHS or private status come in.
Follow-up questions change the picture. A patient who asks "which of these take NHS patients" or "which are open late on Thursdays" makes AI Mode search again, and practices whose websites and profiles state those facts clearly have the best chance of staying in the answer.
AI Mode, AI Overviews and the map pack compared
| Map pack | AI Overview | AI Mode | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it appears | Normal results, usually near the top for local searches | Normal results, above or among the links when Google thinks it helps | A separate tab or google.com/ai |
| What it shows | Usually three practices with rating, reviews and a map | A short AI summary with links | A conversational answer, place cards and links, with follow-ups |
| Main source for practices | Google Business Profile | Indexed web pages | Business Profile information plus indexed web pages |
| How you measure it | Business Profile performance, a rank grid | Search Console | Search Console |
The map pack still matters most for "dentist near me" searches, and our guide to measuring map visibility across your town explains why a single position is misleading. AI Mode sits alongside it rather than replacing it.
Google AI Mode vs ChatGPT for local search
The big difference for a dentist is the source of local facts. AI Mode has Google's own business information to hand, the same data behind Maps. ChatGPT's search, according to OpenAI's help page, sends rewritten queries to partner search providers. In practice that means your Google Business Profile carries more weight in AI Mode, while your website and wider listings carry more weight in assistants that do not have Google's data.
Will AI Mode call or book on a patient's behalf?
Google is building what it calls agentic features into Search. Its help page on using AI Mode to check local availability and pricing describes AI Mode finding open appointment slots and, where information is not online, calling businesses on the user's behalf. At Google I/O in May 2026, Google said agentic calling for select service categories, and booking for local services, would launch in the US. The UK feature listed on the help page today is dining reservations.
So for UK dental practices, automated calls from AI Mode are not something to plan around yet. It is still worth knowing where the setting lives. Google's Business Profile Help says owners can manage automated calls from Google under Business Profile settings, then Advanced settings, and can also ask Google to stop during a call. Google says it will never ask for payment or passwords, so treat any caller who does as a scam.
What to do so AI Mode can use your practice
- Complete your Google Business Profile. Correct primary category, all services, hours, holiday hours, phone, website and current photos. These feed the place cards directly.
- Earn reviews steadily. Ratings and review counts show on the cards. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, and our guide to working out a review target shows how to set yours from your own town's map.
- Answer the follow-up questions on your website. NHS, private or both. Which treatments you offer and starting prices if you publish them. Parking, step-free access, evening and weekend hours, emergency appointments. AI Mode can only repeat facts it can find.
- Keep pages indexable. Google's documentation on AI features says a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to appear as a supporting link, and that there are no additional requirements or special optimisations needed.
- Skip the gimmicks. Google's 2026 guide to generative AI features says you do not need llms.txt files, AI-specific markup or content broken into tiny chunks.
How to measure Google AI Mode traffic
Google says clicks from AI features are included in your overall Search Console figures under the Web search type. Since 31 August 2026, Search Console also has a Generative AI performance report that shows how many times links to your site were shown in AI Overviews and AI Mode, broken down by page, country, device and date. It shows impressions only, with no queries or clicks, and it may not appear at all if your site has too few impressions.
For a practice, the most useful checks are simple:
- Which pages appear in the Generative AI report, and are they the treatment pages you want patients to land on.
- Whether calls and website clicks in your Business Profile performance are holding up.
- What AI Mode says when you ask it your five most important searches each month, from a phone in the practice, signed out.
Will AI Mode reduce visits to your website?
Possibly for some searches, and nobody outside Google can say by how much for dental practices. Google's own position, in its UK launch post, is that AI Mode has "prominent links for people to click on", and that clicks from results pages with AI Overviews are "higher quality", meaning people spend more time on the sites they visit. That is Google's claim rather than a measured figure for your practice, so judge it on your own numbers.
The practical test is bookings, not visits. If website sessions dip while calls, booking requests and new patient enquiries hold steady, patients are simply getting their answer sooner. If enquiries fall too, look at which pages lost visits in Search Console and whether a competitor now appears where you used to. A local patient who has already seen your rating, hours and phone number in a place card may call without ever opening your site, which is a good outcome.
Ask AI Mode about your own practice
Try it now. Ask AI Mode "who are the best dentists in [your town]", then "which of them take NHS patients", then "which are open on Saturday". Note whether you appear, what it says about you and which sources it links. If it gets a fact wrong, the fix is almost always in a source you control: your Business Profile, your website, your NHS website profile or an old directory listing. Correct the source and check again in a few weeks.
AI Mode rewards the same things as good local SEO for dentists: accurate listings, clear pages and genuine reviews. If you want to see where you stand on the normal results first, the free search audit takes a couple of minutes and needs no email.
Track AI Overviews and your map place
Practice Radar's Insight plan tracks AI Overviews alongside your Google map positions and rankings, re-checked every week, so you can see where patients meet your practice.
Run on our own practice first: ninth of the 14 practices measured in its town in May, first of 18 in September, on UK-wide search value. Page-one keywords: 6 in May, 194 in September.
Thirty days free. No card, and nothing starts automatically when it ends.