Gemini

Google runs two answer surfaces and they are not the same thing. Conflating them is the most common error in proposals we read, and it is easy to check for.

Gemini is not Google AI Overviews

An AI Overview appears at the top of an ordinary results page, tied to Google's search index. Gemini is a separate assistant you open deliberately. Same company, different systems, different inputs, and a measurement of one tells you very little about the other.

If an agency uses the two names interchangeably in a proposal, ask which one they measured. It is a fair question and the answer is informative either way.

Grounding, and what the signed-in state does to your numbers

Gemini can answer from what the model already holds or by going and fetching current material, and the difference shows up in whether an answer carries links you can open. Google exposes that as a named behaviour rather than leaving you to guess, which is more than most engines do.

The practical consequence for measurement: Gemini sits inside a Google account, and a signed-in session carries context a cold visitor does not have. Measuring while logged into your own company's account will flatter you. Log out, or you are measuring your own browsing history.

Google-Extended applies here, and only here

The Google-Extended control governs training and Gemini grounding. It does not remove you from AI Overviews, which follow ordinary indexing. That distinction is worth getting right before anyone edits your robots.txt on your behalf, and it is covered in full on the AI Overviews page.