Google Announces Improved Link Display in Search AI Answers: More Inline Links at Top, Thumbnails for Related Articles

U.S. technology company Google announced on October 15, 2026, that it would update its "AI Mode" and "AI Overviews" features in Google Search to improve how website and article links are displayed within AI-generated answers. This follows similar updates made in May.

According to the announcement, the key changes include displaying inline links embedded in the answer text more frequently at the top of the response, and adding thumbnail images to related article links at the end of some answers to make them more visible and clickable. Google stated these measures aim to help users find sources and dive deeper into topics.

Google also mentioned testing a new format where official site links (such as refund forms or policy pages) are grouped in a dedicated section at the top of the answer with usage descriptions. Additionally, the news article carousel feature in AI Overviews is expanding to more regions and languages, allowing users to set "Preferred Sources" to prioritize articles from selected sites. Google reported that users utilizing this setting have increased more than sevenfold since the beginning of the year.

These interface adjustments reflect Google's ongoing effort to balance AI-generated content with original web traffic, aiming to maintain publisher and creator engagement in the AI search ecosystem by increasing the visibility of source links.