Google AI Overviews: What They Mean for Your Visibility

For some searches, Google puts a summary with links to websites at the top of the results. Google calls it an AI Overview. It also has AI Mode, where you hold a conversation with Search. If you run a business, the question is how to stay visible when Google gives the answers itself, and how to get named as a source in them.

The short version

A Google AI Overview is a summary at the top of the search results that appears for some queries, with links to its sources. Studies put the effect on clicks anywhere between a third and more than half fewer clicks on the top result, and Seer saw a recovery in early 2026. Google says the normal SEO basics and unique, useful content are what count, and that you need no special markup or llms.txt file. Since August 31, 2026, Search Console shows how often your pages appear in AI features.

At Make it Matter we follow this closely, because it shapes how customers find you. We already experiment with AI SEO and apply what we learn straight away for our clients.

What is a Google AI Overview?

An AI Overview is a summary written by AI at the top of the search results, with links to the pages the information comes from. Google says it only shows one when it adds something to the regular results, which is why it often stays away. AI Overviews have been available in Dutch since May 20, 2025.

AI Mode is a tab on the results page and is also built into the Google app for Android and iOS. You ask longer questions and follow-ups. Behind the scenes, Google splits a question into subtopics and searches for all of them at once, a technique it calls query fan-out. The Netherlands got AI Mode on October 8, 2025. Since January 2026 you can continue from an AI Overview into AI Mode, and at I/O in May 2026 Google merged the two into one continuous search experience.

What does this mean for your SEO?

How many clicks an AI Overview costs depends on who measures and what they measure. Pew and Ahrefs find roughly a third to more than half fewer clicks, Semrush sees no increase in searches without a click, and Seer saw a recovery in early 2026. Here are the sources, with dates:

• Pew Research Center, July 22, 2025, browsing behavior of 900 Americans in March 2025: on a results page with an AI summary, people clicked a regular result in 8 percent of visits. Without a summary, they did so in 15 percent. They clicked a link inside the summary itself in 1 percent.
• Ahrefs, February 4, 2026, data from December 2025 for 300,000 keywords: the top result has a click-through rate that is 58 percent lower on average when an AI Overview is present. Using the same method, Ahrefs measured 34.5 percent in April 2025.
• Seer Interactive, April 24, 2026, data from 53 brands between January 2025 and February 2026: click-through rate on queries with an AI Overview fell from 3.2 percent in January 2025 to 1.3 percent in December, then rose to 2.4 percent in February 2026. Without an AI Overview it went from 2.8 to 3.8 percent.
• Semrush, revised in December 2025, clickstream data from Datos: for keywords that had no AI Overview in May 2025 but did in October 2025, the share of searches without a click dropped from 33.75 to 31.53 percent.
• SparkToro, June 8, 2026, Similarweb data: in the first four months of 2026, 68.01 percent of US Google searches ended without a click. Only 0.34 percent of searches went through AI Mode.
• Google itself, August 6, 2025: total organic clicks to websites stayed roughly flat compared with a year earlier, and the clicks are of higher quality. Google gives no figures to back that up.

You can't set these numbers side by side without care. Pew measures American users, Ahrefs the top result for informational keywords, and Seer the search terms of 53 brands. None of them studies the click behavior of Dutch searchers.

If your page is cited as a source in the AI Overview, Seer found you get 120 percent more clicks per impression than if it isn't. That is still 38 percent fewer than on queries with no AI Overview. Questions and comparisons often trigger one: in Seer's data, 86 percent of tracked informational queries phrased as questions and 95 percent of informational comparisons had an AI Overview.

Which searches trigger an AI Overview?

Google only shows an AI Overview when the summary adds something to the regular results, so you won't see one on every search. Seer's data shows it appears mostly for questions and comparisons. The table below lists the searches a typical small or mid-sized business deals with, what is known about each, and what to do.

To check this for your own industry, type your five most important searches into Google yourself. You'll see right away whether an AI Overview appears and which sites it cites. Write down who they are, because those are the pages you need to beat on usefulness.

What Google looks at

In its guide to AI features, updated on July 10, 2026, Google says the same SEO basics apply as for regular search results. A page has to be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet. There are no further technical requirements.

1. Publish content that doesn't say the same thing everywhere else. According to Google, unique, useful content probably has more influence on your presence in AI features over the long term than any other advice in the guide. Think of your own experience and your own point of view. A summary of what others already wrote doesn't count, and neither does a list of generic tips.
2. Make clear who wrote the text. E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness) is the framework Google uses to look at quality. Google says it isn't a ranking factor itself and that trust weighs the most. It recommends showing an author name wherever readers would expect one.
3. Get the technical basics right. Check that robots.txt and your CDN or hosting let Googlebot through, that important pages can be found through internal links, and that the page works well on every device.
4. Put your information on the page as plain text, with clear headings and paragraphs. Add good images or video where they fit, because Google can show those in AI answers.
5. Keep your Google Business Profile and Merchant Center data current. Google says AI answers can show product information and data from local businesses.

How do you write a page Google can cite?

Google gives no formula for writing a page that ends up in an AI Overview. The guide does point to unique, useful content, a clear structure and a solid technical base. For a business owner's daily work, these are the steps we follow:

1. Pick one customer question per page. Take it from your inbox, your quote conversations or the questions you get by phone.
2. Answer it in the first paragraph after the heading, in two to four sentences. Someone who reads only that paragraph still knows your position.
3. Expand the answer below it with your own experience: what you did yourself, which mistakes your customers often make and what you would do differently.
4. Put the writer's name and role on the page, so readers see who is speaking.
5. Use a table or list when the content calls for it, for example in a comparison or a step-by-step guide.
6. Show the date of the last update and revise the page when something changes. An outdated figure undermines the rest of your text.
7. Check in Search Console that the page is indexed and that Googlebot isn't blocked.

Say an installation company writes a page on whether a hybrid heat pump suits a 1930s house. A generic page lists pros and cons that appear on a hundred other sites. A page with a point of view describes how the company assesses such a house, which questions it asks about insulation and which situations it advises against. According to Google's guide, that second version has the better chance of lasting, because it contains something found nowhere else.

If you want help setting up pages like this, our content page explains how we approach it. If you'd rather check first that your site is technically sound, see our approach to websites.

What you can skip

Plenty of tips circulate about AEO and GEO (answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization). Google treats it as regular SEO, and the same guide lists things you can skip:

• An llms.txt file, or any other file or markup made specially for AI. Google Search doesn't use them and they have no effect on your visibility, so only keep them if another service uses them.
• Chopping your text into small pieces. Google says there is no ideal page length.
• Writing in a separate style for AI. Google understands synonyms, so you don't need to cover every variant of a search term.
• Chasing mentions on other sites that aren't genuine. Google says this pays off less than it seems.
• Making a separate page for every variant of a question. If you do this mainly to influence rankings or AI answers, it falls under Google's spam policy on scaled content abuse.

Which structured data still gives rich results

AI Overviews and AI Mode need no special schema.org markup. Structured data remains useful for rich results in the regular search results, and it has to match the visible text on the page.

Two types from older advice no longer produce rich results. Google removed HowTo rich results from mobile in August 2023 and from desktop on September 13, 2023. It limited FAQ rich results to well-known government and health sites in August 2023, and since May 7, 2026 it doesn't show them at all. On June 15, 2026, Google removed the documentation on FAQ markup.

According to Google's list of supported markup (updated June 15, 2026), an enhanced search result can appear for Article, Breadcrumb, Event, Job posting, Local business, Organization, Product, Recipe, Review snippet, Software app and Video, among others.

How to see AI features in Search Console

On June 3, 2026, Google announced the Generative AI performance report. Since August 31, 2026, it has been available for all websites worldwide. The report shows how often links to your pages appeared in an AI Overview or in AI Mode, by page, country, device and date.

It shows impressions, not clicks, and it doesn't include search queries. If you can't see the report, your site has had too few impressions in AI features, or you have opted out. Traffic from AI features also shows up in the regular performance report, under search type Web. AI Mode has been counted there since June 16, 2025.

How do you read the report in Search Console?

The Generative AI performance report gives impressions by page, country, device and date. An impression says little about revenue on its own, so read it in three steps:

1. Sort by page and note the ten pages with the most impressions in AI features.
2. Next to each page, put the clicks from the regular performance report and the inquiries from Google Analytics.
3. Check whether pages with many AI impressions also bring in inquiries. If not, they are visible but the page isn't convincing enough, or it attracts the wrong visitors.

Because the report doesn't show search queries, you can't see which question your page was cited for. Type your customers' questions into Google yourself to fill that gap.

What you can do

• Open the Generative AI performance report to see which pages get impressions, and compare that with the clicks and inquiries from Search Console and Google Analytics.
• Search for your customers' questions in Google yourself. You'll see which ones trigger an AI Overview or an AI Mode answer, and which sources they cite.
• In Search Console, under Settings, check that your site is included in Search generative AI. That is the default.

A plan for the first 30 days

You don't have to do everything at once. This schedule suits a business with an existing website and no in-house SEO specialist.

If you also use AI in your own work, for example to turn your expertise into pages, we're happy to help through our AI service.

Can you opt out of AI Overviews and AI Mode?

Yes. In Search Console, under Settings, there is an option called Search generative AI. If you choose to opt out, you no longer get traffic or impressions from AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI features in Discover. Google says this choice doesn't affect your position in the rest of Google Search, and it doesn't change anything about training AI models, which is controlled by Google-Extended. To limit what Google shows from your pages, there are nosnippet, data-nosnippet and max-snippet. With noindex, you remove a page from Google Search entirely. For most small and mid-sized businesses, opting out is a poor choice, because you'd also lose the visibility the summary can bring.

Frequently asked questions

What are SGE and AI snapshots?

These are old names. On May 10, 2023, Google started an experiment in Search Labs called SGE (Search Generative Experience), with an AI snapshot of the key information at the top of the results. On May 14, 2024, Google began rolling out AI Overviews in the US.

Should I write my content as questions?

No. Google says it understands synonyms and the intent behind a question, and that you don't need a special style for generative AI. A question as a heading can still help readers.

Should I remove my FAQ markup?

No. In August 2023 Google wrote that you don't need to actively remove structured data it no longer uses, because it causes no problems and has no visible effect. A block of questions on the page itself stays useful for readers.

Can I keep my site out of AI Overviews and AI Mode?

Yes. In Search Console, go to Settings and choose to opt out of Search generative AI. You'll then get no traffic or impressions from AI features, and your position in the rest of Google Search stays the same.

How do I see whether my page appears in an AI Overview?

Open the Generative AI performance report in Search Console. It shows by page, country, device and date how often links to your site appeared in an AI Overview or AI Mode. Search queries aren't included, so type your customers' questions into Google yourself as well.

Does every website lose clicks to an AI Overview?

Studies disagree. Pew and Ahrefs see fewer clicks, Semrush sees no increase in searches without a click, and Seer saw a recovery in early 2026. In Seer's data, pages cited as a source in the summary get more clicks than pages that aren't.