Google Discover’s New Dive Deeper Button: Enhancing Content Discovery with AI Summaries

| Editorial Team On 22 Sep, 2026

Google is experimenting with a new "Dive deeper" button in Discover that opens AI-generated topic overviews with links to related stories. The test launched Friday and begins with video content.

The feature signals another step in Google's ongoing push to weave AI summaries into its content discovery platform. For publishers and digital marketers already navigating the complexities of AI-driven search, this experiment raises fresh questions about visibility and traffic — and who benefits when readers go deeper.

What Google Is Actually Testing

Robby Stein, VP of Product for Google Search, announced the experiment on X on September 18, 2026. In his post he wrote: "Today we're experimenting with a new way to make exploring a topic and discovering related web content easier in Discover."

Stein described the button's function directly: "By tapping 'Dive deeper,' you'll see a short topic overview with prominent links to related stories, community reactions and original reporting. We'll test this experience on videos to start, and experiment with multiple designs in the weeks ahead as we iterate to learn what works best."

The announcement included an example showing three phone screens:

The first displays a Discover feed featuring a KCRA 3 weather video from YouTube covering a Northern California heat wave. A short AI-generated summary appears beneath the video carrying the label "Generated with AI, which can make mistakes." The "Dive deeper" button sits directly below that summary.
The second screen shows a Google logo at the top followed by the same video, a longer summary and a row of source cards. The first source card links to kcra.com.
The third screen is headed "Explore more stories" and groups short summaries under sub-topic headlines. Each group is followed by source links and brief descriptions of the linked coverage.

Google did not name the countries or languages included in the test. The company also did not specify how many users will see the feature.

The Transparency Gap Worth Noting

One detail that stands out is the label attached to AI-generated summaries: "Generated with AI, which can make mistakes." While this disclaimer exists, its placement — beneath video content in a fast-moving feed — means many users may scroll past it without registering the caveat. For publishers whose content is summarised within these overviews, the accuracy of those summaries is largely outside their control, which makes monitoring how your content is represented an important ongoing task.

How This Fits Into Discover's Expanding AI Landscape

This experiment does not arrive in isolation. Google rolled out AI previews on trending topics in Discover in October 2025. Those previews expand to show additional information alongside links to the web and launched initially in the United States, South Korea and India.

The "Dive deeper" button builds on that framework. Where the earlier AI previews attached context to trending topic cards broadly, this new feature anchors the overview experience to a single video card and places additional web links behind a deliberate tap.

Search Console's New Generative AI Report

Search Console added a generative AI performance report for Discover that Google says rolled out to all websites worldwide on August 31, 2026. The report tracks impressions of links shown in "generative AI features in Discover" and groups data by page, country and date. Impressions are currently the only metric the report describes.

Importantly, the Search Console help page does not specify which features are counted in that report. If impressions from "Dive deeper" overviews are included, they would be grouped together with other AI features — offering no clear breakdown for publishers trying to measure performance. The help page also notes that experiments running through Search Labs are excluded, though Google's announcement did not clarify whether this test runs through Search Labs.

Understanding how to use Google's suite of tools to grow your online presence has become more important as the reporting landscape grows more fragmented. Search Console's generative AI report is a useful starting point, but it currently raises as many questions as it answers.

What the Reporting Gap Means in Practice

The absence of feature-level breakdown in Search Console is not a minor inconvenience. Publishers cannot currently tell whether an impression spike in their Discover AI report came from a "Dive deeper" overview, a trending topic AI preview, or another generative feature entirely. Until Google provides more granular attribution, isolating the impact of any single experiment will require careful manual tracking alongside the platform's native data.

What This Means for Publishers and Marketers

The "Dive deeper" feature adds another tap point on a Discover card. That tap takes users away from the original video card and into an overview populated with links to other coverage. For the publisher whose content appears in that overview, it could represent a new source of referral traffic. For the publisher whose video card triggered the experience, the outcome is less clear.

The Traffic Attribution Challenge

Search Console's current reporting structure makes it difficult to isolate performance from any single AI feature in Discover. Marketers and SEO professionals tracking Discover traffic through Search Console will need to account for the possibility that impressions from this experiment could surface in their data without a clear label.

This is part of a broader shift in how search experience is evolving. The relationship between impressions, clicks and meaningful audience engagement is becoming harder to map as AI-generated layers sit between the user and the original content. Publishers who want to stay ahead of this shift would benefit from understanding how search experience optimisation is reshaping content discovery — particularly as Google continues introducing features that mediate the path between content and reader.

The Opportunity for Video Content Producers

Stein confirmed that Google plans to test multiple designs in the coming weeks, meaning the button's appearance and the structure of the overview are both subject to change. No timeline was given for expanding the test beyond video content.

This experiment starts exclusively with video cards, which creates an immediate and concrete opportunity for publishers investing in video. YouTube content surfaced in Discover is the entry point for this feature. Producers who are already building a video-led digital marketing strategy are best positioned to benefit from early exposure — both through the triggering video card and through potential inclusion in the related stories overview that follows a tap.

The Broader Picture

As Google continues iterating on AI-powered content layers across both Search and Discover, the gap between raw impressions and meaningful traffic attribution grows more complex. Publishers who understand how these features count impressions and how to optimise for them will be better positioned to protect and grow their Discover presence.

For broader context on how AI is reshaping content discovery and search behaviour, Google's own Search Central Blog remains one of the most reliable sources for tracking feature rollouts and official guidance as experiments like this one develop.

How Readers Can Use This Information

Publishers and content creators should monitor their Search Console Discover AI performance report closely now that this experiment is live, as unexplained impression shifts may reflect the "Dive deeper" feature.
Digital marketers and SEO professionals should document current Discover traffic baselines before Google expands the test so they can measure any impact accurately.
Video content producers have an immediate opportunity since this experiment starts exclusively with video cards, making strong YouTube and Discover-optimised video content a higher priority in the short term.