What Google says about getting into the summary
Google’s page on AI features and your website is unusually plain. There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimisations necessary. The technical section repeats the point, saying there are no additional technical requirements. The one condition it does set is the ordinary one. A page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet.
The same page carries the sentence that should end every pitch promising a position. Indexing and serving is not guaranteed. Google Search Central says separately, in its guide to how Search works, that Google does not accept payment to crawl a site more frequently or rank it higher. If anyone tells you otherwise, the guide adds, they are wrong.
The part that genuinely is for sale
Advertising is a different product sitting in the same space. That is where the confusion comes from. Google announced in a post on its ads and commerce blog dated 3 October 2024 that ads appear above and below the AI Overview, with Shopping ads able to show right within the AI Overview where they are relevant to both the query and the response. Those slots carry a Sponsored label.
Eligibility is loose by design. The same post says existing AI powered Search ads, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns can show in these experiences with no additional action required. So if somebody promises to get you into AI Overviews and then opens a Performance Max campaign, they have bought you an ad. Buying an ad is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It is a different purchase from the organic citation most brands think they are paying for.
For UK advertisers the slot is not open yet. Google’s help page did not list the United Kingdom on 2 November 2026. On 28 October 2026 Google said it plans to bring ads in AI Mode to the United Kingdom in Q4 2026, so check the live help page before telling a client the slot is running.
Where the budget actually moves something
Three checks come before any content work, because each one can be switching the brand off. Read robots.txt to confirm Googlebot is allowed. Check the page source for a nosnippet rule, which Google documents as preventing content from being used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode. Check max-snippet as well, which Google documents as limiting how much of the content may be used.
Then open Search Console and look in Settings for the control named Search generative AI. Set to exclude, Google says your links and content are kept out of AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI features in Discover, with no impressions or traffic from them. Include is the default. A plugin or a previous agency can have moved it, so look rather than assume.