Google is still where most people in the UAE search. StatCounter puts Google's share of the UAE search engine market at 95.8% in August 2026. What has changed is the page customers see: for some questions, Google now answers first with an AI Overview, and customers can switch to AI Mode for a longer conversation.
For UAE businesses, both features reward the same basics as ordinary search: pages Google can index, clear answers to customer questions, an accurate Google Business Profile and measurement in Search Console. Google has been refreshingly plain about this. There are "no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary" (Google Search Central). The details, though, now carry more weight.
AI Overviews and AI Mode in the UAE
AI Overviews are the AI-written summaries that can appear above the usual results. Google describes them as a way to help people "get to the gist of a complicated topic or question more quickly", with links to explore further. AI Mode is a separate, conversational way of searching that Google says is "particularly helpful for queries where further exploration, reasoning, or complex comparisons are needed" (Google Search Central).
Google has brought both features to the region, in English and Arabic. AI Overviews arrived in the Middle East and North Africa in May 2025, including in Arabic (Google MENA Blog). AI Mode launched in English in the region in August 2025, and Google started rolling it out in Arabic in October 2025 (Google MENA Blog).
How Google picks the pages behind an AI answer
AI Overviews and AI Mode do not run on a separate index. Google says these features rely on "our core Search ranking systems to retrieve relevant, up-to-date web pages" from its Search index (Google Search Central). To appear as a supporting link, a page "must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet" (Google Search Central).
AI Overviews and AI Mode may also use "query fan-out", which Google describes as "issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources" to build a response. Google says this lets it show "a wider and more diverse set of helpful links" than a classic results page (Google Search Central). For you, that means a page that clearly answers one sub-question, such as what a service costs or which documents are needed, can be pulled into an answer to a broader search.
What we saw on Dubai searches
In September 2026, AI Visibility ran three everyday searches on Google, twice each, in English, on a single day, from one logged-in account that Google placed in Dubai Marina. We looked at both the normal results page and AI Mode. Twelve snapshots are not a study, but they show how differently searches behave.
- A local search for a family dentist in Dubai Marina did not produce an AI Overview on either run. The page showed sponsored listings and a map of local clinics. In AI Mode, Google showed a map and a short list of clinics, citing the clinics' own websites for details such as opening hours, parking, accreditation and the age range they treat.
- A question about what AC maintenance costs in Dubai produced an AI Overview both times. The first run included a price table drawn mostly from local providers' pricing pages, and the same provider's site was cited first every time we looked, in the normal results and in AI Mode.
- A question about renewing a mainland trade licence also produced an AI Overview both times. The sources mixed the government portal with guides written by business setup firms, and in AI Mode a setup firm's guide was cited first both times. We looked only at the sources Google used, not at the renewal process itself.
In our searches, local "near me" questions leaned on the map and Business Profiles, while cost and process questions drew on pages that stated prices and steps plainly. Local businesses that published those facts ended up as sources.
Where UAE businesses should focus
Google's advice fits on a short list. Here is how it applies to a UAE business.
- Make sure Google can crawl and index your key pages. Google's first recommendation is to ensure crawling is allowed "in robots.txt, and by any CDN or hosting infrastructure", followed by making content "easily findable through internal links" (Google Search Central). Your robots.txt file, which tells crawlers what they may visit, and any content delivery network (CDN) in front of your site must not block Google. Before anything else, paste each key service page address into Search Console's URL Inspection tool to confirm Google has indexed it.
- Answer the questions customers actually search. Google asks for "non-commodity content that's helpful, reliable, and people-first" (Google Search Central). For a Dubai business that often means price ranges or how pricing works, what is included, which areas you cover, timelines and required documents, written as text on the page. Lunasol, the agency behind AI Visibility, builds this kind of page for clients, starting from research into what customers ask (Lunasol).
- Keep your Google Business Profile complete and current. Google lists "Checking that your Merchant Center and Business Profile information is up-to-date" among its best practices (Google Search Central), and says these tools can help your products and services be visible "in both AI responses and other Google Search results" (Google Search Central). Merchant Center matters if you sell products online. Google's Business Profile help adds practical steps: verify the business, keep hours accurate, respond to reviews and add photos.
- Make pages easy to use on a phone, with real photos or video. Google asks sites to display "well across all devices" and to reduce latency (Google Search Central), and recommends "high-quality images and videos, when applicable" alongside the text (Google Search Central). Open your main pages on your own phone over mobile data and check that prices are clear and contact buttons work.
- Keep structured data accurate. Structured data is code that labels facts such as your business type, address and opening hours for search engines. Google's rule is that it should match "the visible text on the page" (Google Search Central). Lunasol implements and validates this markup for clients as part of its content work (Lunasol).
- Publish in Arabic where your customers search in Arabic. Both features are available in Arabic. If a meaningful share of your customers search in Arabic, we recommend properly written Arabic pages rather than machine translation, and one consistent Arabic form of your business name.
What you can safely skip
Google is just as direct about shortcuts. Its guidance tells site owners to "Prioritize effective SEO strategies over 'AEO/GEO hacks'", and says you do not need new machine-readable files, AI text files or Markdown versions of pages because "Google Search itself doesn't use them" (Google Search Central). It also warns that creating separate pages for every search variation mainly "to manipulate rankings or generative AI responses in Google Search violates Google's scaled content abuse spam policy". The point is about shortcuts, not about doing this work properly.
Controlling how Google shows your content
If there is content you do not want shown in Google's results, the controls are the same ones that apply to Search generally: "use nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet, or noindex controls" (Google Search Central). These are page- or section-level instructions your web developer can add. Be careful with them: noindex removes a page from Google Search entirely and nosnippet removes its text preview, so apply them page by page and never to service pages you want customers to find.
A common misunderstanding: blocking Google-Extended does not remove you from AI Overviews or AI Mode. Google-Extended is a robots.txt setting that controls whether your content is used for Google's Gemini products, and Google states that it "does not impact a site's inclusion in Google Search nor is it used as a ranking signal in Google Search" (Google for Developers).
How to measure AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search Console
Traffic from these features is already included in your Search Console data. Google says sites appearing in AI features "are included in the overall search traffic in Search Console", within the "Web" search type of the Performance report (Google Search Central).
Search Console also has a Generative AI performance report, which shows impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode, grouped by page, country, date and device. Google says it rolled these insights out to all websites worldwide as of 31 August 2026, although the report may not appear for sites without enough impressions (Search Console Help). Grouping by country shows your impressions from users in the UAE.
Beyond impressions, Google says that when people click from results pages with AI Overviews, "these clicks are higher quality (meaning, users are more likely to spend more time on the site)" (Google Search Central). Whatever the source, the numbers that matter most to a business are enquiries: calls, forms and WhatsApp messages, tracked in your analytics.
How Lunasol measures this. Lunasol tracks the answer placements a client's pages win, and its own AI tools re-run customers' real questions with AI models, with the numbers reported every quarter (Lunasol).
Your next step
Pick the five searches that bring you the most valuable customers. Run each one on Google and note whether an AI Overview appears, which sites it cites and whether your Business Profile shows correctly on the map. Then open Search Console, confirm that the pages that should answer those searches are indexed, and look at the Generative AI performance report if it is available for your site.
If you would like a second opinion, you can ask Lunasol for a free AI visibility check by WhatsApp or email; the contact details are on its AI search service page.
AI Visibility is owned by Lunasol.
