Watch: AI Mode & Page Indexing
Tests indicate Google's AI Mode uses a proprietary content store rather than the live web, as it fails to fetch indexed pages that are otherwise ranking.
Transcript
You might think that if a webpage is indexed on Google, its AI models can read it. But recent tests show that is not the case.
Google’s AI Mode does not retrieve page content from the live web. Instead, it seems to rely on a separate, proprietary content store. In testing, AI Mode completely failed to fetch a page that was actively indexed and ranking in classic Google search. Even when a page is live and visible to the search engine, AI Mode remains blind to it.
Interestingly, the standard Gemini consumer app does have a direct connection to Google’s search index. It can easily find newly indexed pages and read their content. Yet, AI Mode, AI Studio, and Vertex remain completely clueless about those same pages.
This issue isn't unique to Google. Most mainstream AI assistants, including GPT and Grok, struggle to fetch live web pages and will often lie to you about the content. If you need an AI that reliably fetches a live URL, Claude is currently the only major model that consistently gets it right.