Fan-out

also known as: query fan-out

The set of background search queries an AI surface issues to answer a single prompt. Surfaces like ChatGPT with search and Google’s AI Mode decompose one question into several sub-queries before composing the answer, and some of them print those sub-queries right in the answer. Where a surface exposes its fan-out this way, the queries land in the captured answer text, revealing which searches your content must win to be retrieved and cited.

In AI Search API

Fan-out is not a separate response field: the API returns the answer as the surface rendered it, and where a surface prints its sub-queries (Google’s AI Mode most reliably), they are right there in answer.markdown. Nothing is fabricated. A surface that never exposes its fan-out simply does not show it in the answer, rather than the API inventing a plausible-looking list.

Envelope excerpt, fan-out printed in the answer

"answer": {
  "markdown": "…\n\nSearches run:\n- best travel mirrorless 2026\n- lightest mirrorless cameras"
}

Related terms

See it in the product

Every definition here is enforced in the Envelope contract. Run a capture and read the fields yourself.

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