Google AI Overviews Are Taking Clicks. What Should Your Business Do?

Yes, Google's AI Overviews reduce clicks to websites, on the searches where they appear. Independent studies put the drop at roughly half. But they don't appear on every search, being cited inside the overview recovers part of the loss, and searches with clear buying intent behave differently from research questions. Here's what the data shows and what to change on your website.

Key Takeaways

• Pew Research found people clicked a result link on 8% of Google visits with an AI summary, versus 15% without one.
• Seer Interactive's 2026 data shows brands cited inside an AI Overview get about 120% more organic clicks per impression than brands that aren't cited.
• Informational "what is" and "how to" searches lose the most clicks. Searches for a specific service, brand or location are less affected.
• The response is to earn citations, sharpen pages that convert, and measure enquiries, not just traffic.

What AI Overviews and AI Mode are

AI Overviews are the AI-written summaries at the top of some Google results, with links to the pages they drew from. AI Mode is a separate, chat-style search tab where Google answers follow-up questions conversationally. Both use Google's search index to find sources, and Google may run several related searches behind the scenes to build one answer (Google Search Central).

Google only shows an AI Overview when its systems judge it useful, so many searches still show the classic list of links.

What the data says about lost clicks

Pew Research Center tracked the real browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025. On Google searches that showed an AI summary, users clicked a traditional result link on 8% of visits, compared with 15% when no summary appeared. Only about 1% of visits included a click on a link inside the summary itself, and users were more likely to end their browsing session after seeing one (26% versus 16%) (Pew Research Center, July 2025).

Seer Interactive analyses Search Console data from 53 brands, covering 5.47 million queries. Its 2026 update found organic click-through rate on searches with an AI Overview fell to a low of 1.3% in December 2025, then recovered to 2.4% by February 2026. Seer cautions that two months is too little data to call a trend (Seer Interactive).

The numbers vary by study and method, but they agree on the direction: when an AI Overview appears, fewer people click.

Being cited is the new ranking

The most useful finding for business owners is in Seer's data: brands cited inside an AI Overview received about 120% more organic clicks per impression than brands that weren't cited. Cited brands still got fewer clicks than they would with no AI Overview at all, but the gap between cited and not cited is large (Seer Interactive).

Being cited also puts your name in front of the searcher even when they don't click, which matters when they later search for you by name or message you on WhatsApp.

Which searches lose the most

AI Overviews hit hardest on questions that can be answered in a paragraph:

• Most affected: "what is a landing page", "how to improve website speed", "difference between hosting and domain". The answer is the product, so many people stop at the summary.
• Less affected: "web design agency Kuala Lumpur", "WordPress developer near me", "[your brand name]". People searching like this want to choose a provider, compare options or contact someone, and the local map results and business listings still do much of the work.

If most of your enquiries come from service and location searches, your leads may be holding up even if your blog traffic is falling. Check before you panic.

Six steps to protect your traffic and leads

1. Find out what changed. In Google Search Console, compare the last three months with the same period last year. Sort pages by lost clicks. If the drops are mostly on informational blog posts while service pages hold steady, focus there.

2. Make your pages easy to cite. Open each key page and section with a direct, factual answer, use specific numbers, and link to your sources. Our guide to answer engine optimisation covers this in detail.

3. Strengthen pages that convert. Service, pricing and location pages are where buyers land. Give each one clear prices or price ranges, real project examples, reviews and an obvious way to contact you. A page that turns 5% of a smaller audience into enquiries can bring in more leads than one that turns 1% of a larger audience.

4. Invest in your Google Business Profile. Local searches show the map pack, which AI Overviews don't replace. Our Google Maps ranking checklist covers what to fix.

5. Build your brand searches. People who already know your name search for it directly, and those searches rarely trigger an AI Overview. Case studies, reviews, social content and email all build that recognition.

6. Measure enquiries, not just sessions. Track form submissions, WhatsApp clicks and calls in Google Analytics. Traffic can fall while enquiries stay flat or grow, because the visitors who still click are often further along in their decision.

Should you block Google's AI features?

You can limit how your content appears using the nosnippet and max-snippet controls, but these also shrink your normal search snippets. Blocking the separate Google-Extended token stops your content being used to train Gemini models, and Google says it does not affect inclusion or ranking in Google Search (Google). For most businesses that want customers to find them, opting out of AI search does more harm than good.

The bottom line

AI Overviews change where clicks go, not whether people need a business like yours. Focus on being the source Google cites, on pages that turn visitors into enquiries, and on a local presence the AI can't replace. If you're not sure where your site stands, our free website audit checks speed and SEO basics in under a minute.

Frequently asked questions

Do Google AI Overviews reduce website traffic?

On searches where they appear, yes. Pew Research found users clicked a result link on 8% of visits with an AI summary versus 15% without. The impact depends on the type of search: informational questions lose the most clicks, while searches for a specific service, brand or location are less affected.

How do I get my website cited in AI Overviews?

Google says there are no special requirements beyond normal SEO: the page must be indexed and eligible to show a snippet. Pages that answer the question directly, include specific facts with sources, and are well linked within your site have a better chance of being used.

Can I see AI Overview traffic in Google Search Console?

Clicks and impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in Search Console's Performance report under the Web search type, but they are not reported separately from normal results.

Will blocking Google-Extended remove my site from AI Overviews?

Google says Google-Extended does not affect a site's inclusion in Google Search or its ranking. It controls whether your content is used to train Gemini models and for grounding in some other Google AI products.