Google tests source preferences button in AI Mode citations

Google is testing a Source preferences button inside the AI Mode citations panel that opens a searcher's preferred sources list, so they can add or remove sites without leaving the answer. A user shared a short video of it on X on 16 October, and it was reported in the search press on 19 October. Google has not announced it, and it is not widely visible.

Until now, preferred sources were managed from the star icon next to Top Stories or from the Source preferences page in Search personalisation settings. The test puts a shortcut to that list inside AI Mode's citations, right beside the links Google chose for an AI answer, which is where a business that publishes content would most want to be picked.

What the test shows

In the video, the AI Mode answer has its usual sidebar of cited pages. A new button labelled Source preferences sits in that sidebar. Clicking it opens the same preferred sources list Google already offers, where the searcher can add or remove sites.

That is the whole feature as far as anyone outside Google can see. There is no announcement and no detail on how many people are in the test. AI Mode has supported preferred sources since May, so the new button is a shortcut to an existing setting rather than a new signal.

How preferred sources work today

Google launched Preferred Sources on 12 August 2025 in the United States and India, and made it global in all supported languages in April 2026. The pitch from Google Search product manager Duncan Osborn was simple: pick the news sites you follow and subscribe to, and see their articles more often in Top Stories when they have published something fresh and relevant to the search.

The setup takes four steps. Search a topic in the news, click the icon to the right of Top Stories, search for and select the sites you want, then refresh the results. Chosen sites appear more often in Top Stories or in a separate From your sources section. Other sites still show, and the list can be changed at any time.

There is no cap on the number of sources. Google said more than half of the people who tried it in Labs chose four or more, and Labs selections carried across at launch.

Google also told publishers they could encourage their followers and subscribers to select their site, and pointed to a dedicated help centre with resources for doing so. That invitation is the part most relevant to a business, and it has been there from day one.

Where this fits with Google's other AI Mode changes

The test surfaced the day after Google announced five link changes for AI Mode and AI Overviews on 15 October. Among them, Google said the news carousels that give extra space to a searcher's chosen sites are expanding to more countries and languages, though it did not say which. It also plans to trial a block at the top of certain answers that points people to the official page for a given task, and has started testing creator and publisher names on AI Mode video results, with each name linking to that creator's Search profile.

Put together, Google is giving searchers more ways to steer which sites appear in AI answers, and giving sites more labelled space inside those answers. A preferred sources button in the citations panel is a natural next step in that direction.

On the paid side, Google is also testing ads in AI Mode for people who connect Gmail and Google Photos. The organic and paid surfaces in AI Mode are both moving at once, and the controls for each are still being worked out.

What it means for an Australian business

Three things are worth being clear about.

First, this is a user setting. Google has not said that being a preferred source changes rankings or citation rates for anyone who has not picked you. A searcher who adds your site sees more of you, and that is the extent of the documented effect.

Second, what is unconfirmed is the button, not the feature. Preferred Sources itself is available in Australia: Google made it global in April 2026, and its documentation says it works in AI Mode and AI Overviews wherever those are available. Whether the new Source preferences button in AI Mode citations is being tested here is not known.

Third, eligibility has a technical floor. Google's documentation says a site will only be shown as a preferred source in AI Mode and AI Overviews if Search Console lists it as included in Search's generative AI features. Only whole domains or subdomains can be chosen, not a subfolder like /blog, and sites that are not updated regularly may not appear in the tool.

There is also a measurement wrinkle. In Search Console, every link inside an AI Overview is recorded at the same position as the overview itself, so a site being highlighted higher in an AI answer does not move in the report. In AI Mode and Top Stories, position follows the normal results-page rules, so the cleaner signal everywhere is clicks and impressions to the pages readers have chosen. Watch those first and treat position as secondary.

What to do this week

Nothing here calls for a rebuild, and nothing is worth optimising for yet. A few cheap steps make sense while the test runs its course.

• In Search Console, open Settings > Search generative AI and confirm the site is set to include its links and content, which is the default. If it is set to exclude, your site cannot be shown as a preferred source in AI answers. Then use the Generative AI performance report to see which pages already earn impressions there; improving that is ordinary answer engine optimisation work.
• Search for your domain in Google's source preferences tool at google.com/preferences/source to check that your site can be chosen. Then run a newsy query in AI Mode and look for a Source preferences button in the citations. If it appears, you are in the test.
• Use the resources in Google's publisher help centre to tell email subscribers and regular customers how to add your site. Google explicitly invited publishers to do this, and it costs nothing beyond one paragraph in a newsletter.
• Make the site easy to recognise when it appears as a citation, with a consistent site name and author names on content. Google is testing publisher names on AI Mode video results, so visible identity is becoming part of how citations look.
• Annotate the date in your analytics. If Google widens the test or ships the button, you want a line in the sand to compare AI Mode referrals against.

Google is quietly connecting a user control to the surface where it matters most. The only things a business can do about it today are to be eligible and to give regular customers a reason to choose it.