How it impacts you?

AI Overviews have the biggest impact on traditional online marketing metrics because they appear frequently, and users find them beneficial.

Longer search terms have a 55.22% – 69.21% chance of triggering an AIO, assuming all other factors that influence when an AIO appears are equal.
Now, considering that 92% of all searches are long-tail keywords, it’s safe to assume that AIOs appear for a good percentage of search terms typed into Google.
Google itself, via its core updates, is expanding the reach of AI overviews. For example, after the March 2025 core update, AIOs started appearing 116% more often than it did before March of 2025
A recent study found that 89% of users find AI Overviews helpful, while 84% believe it improves their overall search experience.
AI Overviews appear in Position 1, 87.6% of the time.

SO, HOW DOES GOOGLE AI OVERVIEW AFFECT YOUR PRACTICE?

Pushing Down Organic Rankings

If an AIO appears, it means whatever ranking is below it is now considered as ranking one position lower. So if an AI Overview appears right at the top, then what was ranking in position one is now considered as ranking in position 02.

What’s Ranking Below The AI Overview Is Becoming Less Impactful

If a Google AI Overview appears at the top of search results with the answer to the user’s search question highlighted, it draws the user’s attention even more to the AIO. This results in users not wanting to scroll down to see what’s ranking organically. This means that if an AIO appears at the very top, whatever organic results ranking below it (positions 02 and 03…) are less significant now.

AIO Response Does Not Represent What’s Ranking On Page One

Google AI Overview (AIO) responses are curated summaries, meaning Google decides what it thinks is the most helpful answer rather than simply listing the top results. Because AIOs only have a weak to moderate correlation compared to the search results on page one of Google, the businesses or service providers recommended in an AIO could come from different businesses ranking in positions 3, 4, 12, and even 19. This means that businesses ranking in positions 2, 5, 6, 7, 8… would be completely left out of the AIO response. To put it another way, AIO responses don’t just mirror page-one rankings. It picks and chooses from across Google search result pages, which means some highly ranked sites may not appear in the response, while lower-ranking websites might.

Traffic Drops

As explained above, AI Overview responses include all the information the user needs to know, meaning the user is less likely to click on a link, scroll down, or move past the AI Overview response. This results in what’s known as “Zero Click,” which means the user who earlier would have made a search and then visited a website or profile/listing is now less likely to do that anymore. The few users who click on a result/source would be tracked as organic traffic. Even then, not all links or sources would point back to the website. It could point to an online profile or listing that the teams created, managed, or optimized.

So, going forward, website traffic from the search result page would come only under certain conditions.

If an AIO does not appear for the search term, and if the website ranks on page one of Google, and the user clicks on the website.
If an AIO does appear, and if the user scrolls past it and clicks on the website that is ranking on page one of Google
If an AIO does appear, if the user does not scroll past it, if the business is listed in the AI response, if the user needs to click on the recommended business, and if that link points to the website.

WHAT ABOUT AI MODE, CHATGPT, PERPLEXITY, ETC? WHAT IMPACT DO THEY HAVE?

Again, we see the same effects as with AI Overviews, but they are slightly different because users who navigate to these platforms experience a different search experience than those who go to Google.com and see an AI Overview appearing within a traditional search result page.

Lack of Traffic

Users who navigate to these platforms and use them for search will obviously get responses that are curated summaries of what the AI thinks is best to show the user for the search prompt entered. In these AI platforms, if the user wants to know more about a business or service provider, they can simply ask a follow-up question. All of this again results in the “Zero Click” effect, which means users don’t need to click on a link and visit a website to find out the information they want. The few users who click on a result/source may even visit the website, as not all links or sources would point back to the website. Some could point to an online profile or listing that the teams created, managed, or optimized.

No Concept of Ranking

Except for AI Mode, there is no concept of ranking within ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. For example, if you ask “What are the best pizza places in Chicago?” the AI might list five restaurants, but the first one isn’t necessarily “better” than the fifth. If you repeat the same question, the order may change, with businesses swapping places or even new ones being suggested. In other words, there’s an element of randomness in how results are presented.

What does better mean? In Google, what’s ranking in one is better than what’s ranking in position 03 (maybe in terms of relevance, authority, content, or EEAT or NAP consistency or backlinks or in terms of some ranking algorithm score). In AI responses, it’s all about how the AI structured the response. It’s not a quality score to say the first one is better than the fifth one, which is why the concept of ranking does not exist.

Except for Perplexity, most other AI platforms like Gemini and ChatGPT have very weak correlation to what’s ranking on page one on Google. Even though Perplexity has a better correlation, it’s not 100% it’s more like 30%

So in AI platforms, it’s all about a business being discovered/visible for a specific search-related prompt. Even being listed within AI responses, though, a great first step does not typically mean guaranteed ROI because an AI would typically recommend multiple businesses or service providers, especially if the search term intent indicates the user wants to find a new business or service provider. So even if your business is listed in the response, the user has to choose which business/service provider to go with. This is not that different from ranking on page one of Google, but it’s noteworthy to mention that being discovered by the AI does not guarantee ROI.

Sources

https://www.digitalthirdcoast.com/blog/ai-mode-use-trends
https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-overviews-rank-below-position-1-study-457561
https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/long-tail-keywords
https://neilpatel.com/blog/zero-click-searches/
https://searchengineland.com/zero-click-searches-up-organic-clicks-down-456660
https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-overviews-rank-below-position-1-study-457561
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-search-overlap/
https://www.seo.com/ai/ai-overviews-seo-impact-keyword-study/
https://seranking.com/blog/ai-overviews/
https://www.semrush.com/blog/semrush-ai-overviews-study/