Google has rolled out another round of link changes to AI Mode and AI Overviews — and confirmed that preferred-sources usage has grown by more than 7X — while still refusing to add click data to the AI performance reports publishers are asking for.

It is the latest in a long series of redesigns of how links and carousel cards appear inside Google's AI-generated answers (AI Overviews are the summary blocks in regular Search; AI Mode is the full conversational search experience). Google frames every change the same way: make links more visible so searchers click through to the publisher or creator. Whether that actually happens is something Google's own reporting cannot yet show, because clicks are not in the reports.

What exactly changed?

Google confirmed several updates, the substance of which is straightforward:

• More links, placed higher. Google increased the number of links in AI Mode and AI Overviews and moved some of them further up within the AI response.
• Right-page linking. For some queries that warrant it, Google will surface one or two links to what it calls the "right web page."
• Timely article carousels go global. The carousel format for fresh articles is expanding to more regions and languages worldwide.
• Bolder related-articles design. Related article cards now carry more prominent link styling.
• Creator profile links in testing. Google is testing links on creator and publisher names attached to videos in AI Mode — but those links go to the Google Search profile page first, not directly to the creator's own site.

Alongside the feature changes, Google said the number of people using preferred sources — the setting that lets searchers prioritize specific sites in AI answers — has increased by more than 7X. It gave no absolute figure for that baseline, so the multiplier says more about momentum than scale.

Everything above is confirmed by Google as shipped or in testing. What remains unconfirmed is the part publishers care about most: whether any of it produces visits.

What does this change for publishers?

In practical terms, not much yet. A publisher whose content appears in AI Overviews may see its links rendered in more formats, higher on the response, or inside a global carousel — all of which raises the theoretical chance of a click. The profile-link test cuts the other way: a searcher tapping a creator's name lands on a Google Search profile before reaching, if ever, the creator's own domain. Google keeps that first interaction on its own property.

The industry's frustration is less about the designs than about measurement. Google's AI performance reports currently do not include click counts. Google knows this is the top request; when asked, the company said: "We're continuing to work with website owners to understand what insights will be most helpful to inform their strategies, and we'll introduce additional metrics over time."

That is a commitment to unspecified future metrics, not to clicks specifically. The asymmetry is hard to miss: clicks are the number-one metric Google itself uses in Google Ads, where it charges advertisers for them. In organic AI search, the same company declines to report them.

Why the design treadmill keeps turning

The pattern is now familiar. Google adjusts the link cards, describes the goal as driving clicks to publishers, and publishes no numbers proving the design works. Then it adjusts again. This round — more links, higher placement, one or two "right page" results for deserving queries — reads as an admission that previous formats underperformed, though Google has not said so directly.

For verticals that depend on timely content — news, reviews, product coverage — the global expansion of the article carousels is the most concrete change here, since it widens the surfaces where a fresh story can carry a link. For creators whose videos surface in AI Mode, the profile-link test introduces a new intermediate step between the searcher and the destination site, one worth watching closely.

None of this settles the underlying question the industry keeps asking: if the "more clickable design" works, show the clicks. Until the AI performance reports carry a click metric, every redesign will be judged on screenshots and anecdote rather than data.

Watch the AI performance reports over the coming months — the "additional metrics over time" language is Google's only promise on the table, and whether those metrics finally include clicks is the signal that will tell publishers whether any of these link formats matter.