Release notes: Google AI Mode relabel and the Google AI Overview channel

What changed for MCP clients when Google collection was split into two channels (2026-09). Read this if your client stores engine names, filters by google_ai_overview, or parses provenance.engine_ids.

The relabel: past "AI Overview" data is AI Mode

The Google channel published until now as google_ai_overview (internal id google-0) was in fact collecting Google AI Mode answers. It is now published under its real name:

• History answers as google_ai_mode. Every answer, citation and mention collected on google-0 — including everything you previously read as google_ai_overview — now comes back with engine: google_ai_mode. Nothing was re-collected or rewritten; only the name changed. If your client keeps its own copy keyed by engine name, re-key google_ai_overview rows from before this release to google_ai_mode.
• engine=google_ai_overview returns nothing until AI Overview is active. The name now resolves only to the new google-aio-0 channel, which is switched on workspace by workspace. Until a workspace collects it, a window with engines: ['google_ai_overview'] returns no rows (not an error). Queries with no overview at Google come back answered: false once it collects.
• google_ai now means AI Mode + AI Overview. It expands to both google-0 and google-aio-0 everywhere a public engine list is accepted: window filters, set_weekly_schedule, run_question_now and friends, and estimate_run_cost. An estimate for engines: ['google_ai'] therefore counts two Google channels, even for a workspace where AI Overview is not active yet.

provenance.engine_ids shape

Every analytical envelope's provenance.engine_ids maps each public engine name to the internal id(s) it resolves to.

• google_ai is now an array, ["google-0", "google-aio-0"]; it used to be the single string "google-0". Every other key is still one string.
• New keys: google_ai_overview ("google-aio-0"), google_ai_mode ("google-0") and copilot ("copilot-0"). (Copilot was retired 2026-10-14; copilot is no longer a key or an accepted engine name.)

A client that assumed every value is a string must handle the array case for google_ai.

list_engines

• google-0 is listed as google_ai_mode ("Google AI Mode").
• google-aio-0 is listed as google_ai_overview ("Google AI Overview"), is_active: false until it is activated.
• The retired, never-collected google-1 channel is no longer listed. set_weekly_schedule no longer echoes it back either, if an old schedule still names it, so a schedule you read can always be written back as is.

Report bundles

• Bundles built before this release keep the old label. A stored report bundle is frozen evidence, not re-rendered: one built earlier still says google_ai_overview for what is AI Mode data. Treat google_ai_overview in a bundle dated before this release as google_ai_mode.
• Bundles built during the rollout may too. While the release rolled out, some requests were still served by the previous version, and a bundle it built in that window may carry the old google_ai_overview label for google-0 data even though it is dated after the release. Wherever an internal engine id is shown, it is the reliable signal: google-0 is AI Mode, google-aio-0 is AI Overview. A bundle regenerated after the rollout carries the new labels.

See getting-started (Engines) for the current engine list.