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Google brings Preferred Sources into AI Overviews and AI Mode
Google has expanded its Preferred Sources feature into AI Overviews and AI Mode, as announced by Google Search product manager Duncan Osborn and flagged by Glenn Gabe, Leigh McKenzie, Louisa Frahm, and Barry Schwartz across the community. Links from a user's selected sources now appear with a clear label inside AI responses, mirroring how Top Stories already highlights them.
What changed
Preferred Sources is global and available in all languages, with Google reporting more than 345,000 unique sources selected and users twice as likely to click through to a preferred source.
Two related changes accompany the rollout. A prominent article carousel now appears for developing-topic queries, highlighting a reader's preferred sources where available, with a companion carousel drawing on forums and social discussions coming soon. Separately, the "Highly Cited" label is expanding to more web article links on the results page to flag primary reporting that other articles reference. Leigh McKenzie's structural read: as users repeatedly select trusted brands, that preference becomes a personalisation signal Google can fold into a broader memory layer across its products.
Why it matters for advertisers
For you, this means publishers and brands should actively prompt their audiences to add them as a Preferred Source, since the feature now influences visibility inside AI answers, not just Top Stories. Worth adding the Preferred Source button Google provides to high-traffic pages and treating audience familiarity as a direct AI-visibility lever.
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Google brings Preferred Sources into AI Overviews and AI Mode
Google has expanded its Preferred Sources feature into AI Overviews and AI Mode, as announced by Google Search product manager Duncan Osborn and flagged by Glenn Gabe, Leigh McKenzie, Louisa Frahm, and Barry Schwartz across the community. Links from a user's selected sources now appear with a clear label inside AI responses, mirroring how Top Stories already highlights them. Preferred Sources is global and available in all languages, with Google reporting more than 345,000 unique sources selected and users twice as likely to click through to a preferred source.
Two related changes accompany the rollout. A prominent article carousel now appears for developing-topic queries, highlighting a reader's preferred sources where available, with a companion carousel drawing on forums and social discussions coming soon. Separately, the "Highly Cited" label is expanding to more web article links on the results page to flag primary reporting that other articles reference. Leigh McKenzie's structural read: as users repeatedly select trusted brands, that preference becomes a personalisation signal Google can fold into a broader memory layer across its products.
For you, this means publishers and brands should actively prompt their audiences to add them as a Preferred Source, since the feature now influences visibility inside AI answers, not just Top Stories. Worth adding the Preferred Source button Google provides to high-traffic pages and treating audience familiarity as a direct AI-visibility lever.
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