Google’s AI Overviews put a generated summary above the organic results for a large and growing set of queries. For some businesses that has barely registered. For others, pages that still rank in the top three are getting noticeably fewer clicks than they used to. Understanding which group you’re in, and why, is the first step to responding sensibly.
What actually changes when an AI Overview appears
An AI Overview pushes the traditional results further down the page and, for many simple questions, gives the searcher what they needed without a click. Industry studies have consistently found lower click-through rates on queries that trigger an Overview, with informational queries hit hardest. Your rankings can stay exactly where they were while traffic falls, which is why so many site owners first notice the effect as a mismatch between steady positions and declining sessions.
The impact isn’t uniform, though. It depends heavily on what the searcher wants.
- Quick facts and definitions (“what is a sitemap”) are most exposed. The summary often fully satisfies the query.
- How-to and comparison queries lose some clicks but still send traffic to sources that offer depth, tools, templates or examples.
- Commercial and local queries (“emergency plumber Parramatta”, “SEO agency Sydney”) are less affected. People still want to choose a provider, compare options and make contact.
- Branded queries are largely untouched. Someone searching your name usually wants your site.
How to tell whether you’re affected
Search Console is the best place to start. Compare a recent period with the same period a year earlier and look for queries and pages where:
- impressions are stable or rising,
- average position is stable, but
- clicks and click-through rate have dropped.
Then search those queries yourself in a private window. If an AI Overview appears and covers the answer your page gives, you’ve found the cause. Group the affected pages by intent; the pattern usually tells you where to focus.
Five ways to respond
1. Become a cited source
AI Overviews link to the pages they draw from. Being one of those links recovers some visibility and positions your brand as the authority. Clear, well-structured answers near the top of the page, strong topical coverage and trustworthy authorship all improve your chances. Our guide to answer engine optimisation covers this in detail.
2. Offer what a summary can’t
Calculators, checklists, original data, detailed worked examples, local pricing and real case studies give people a reason to click through. Thin pages that restate common knowledge are the ones that lose most.
3. Shift effort toward commercial intent
If informational traffic is shrinking, rebalance your content plan toward service, product, location and comparison pages, which tend to be more resilient and convert better anyway.
4. Strengthen your brand
People who already know you search for you by name and click through. Brand-building through PR, reviews, social and email makes your traffic less dependent on generic queries.
5. Re-baseline your reporting
Measure success on leads, sales and conversions rather than raw sessions. A page that loses informational clicks but keeps generating enquiries is still doing its job, and stakeholders need to see that clearly.
The bottom line
AI Overviews reduce clicks for the easiest questions, not for the moments when people are ready to choose a business. Protect the traffic that matters, earn citations where you can, and make your pages genuinely worth the click. If you’d like a clear picture of how AI Overviews are affecting your site, our SEO team can run the analysis and build a response plan.
