How AI Overviews Are Quietly Rewriting the Rules of Search

“Previously, my SEO strategy focused on high-search-volume keywords,” says Sushen Fa Duara, an SEO specialist who, like many of us, used to pine to make it to the top 10 blue links. 

But the introduction of Google’s AI Overviews has pivoted his approach. “Instead of just ranking for keywords, I now try to address all user perspectives for a particular topic,” he writes.

For instance, to target a query on “dog protein pills,” he doesn’t simply list the products. He lists benefits, risks, breed-specific needs, vet-approved dosages, and natural alternatives. “By covering these diverse angles, I try to make the content more valuable, informative, and AI-friendly,” says Sushen, who claims the shift has brought him more traffic from large language models (LLM).  

The introduction of Google’s AI Overviews (AIO) and, more recently, its AI Mode, has upended search marketing. It isn’t just another search engine results page (SERP) feature. 

Ross Briggs, Senior Director of Product Management at Tag, suggests that AI Overviews is Google’s direct competitive response to pressure from LLMs like ChatGPT and Perplexity, which he calls "the biggest challenge to Google's ownership of that market share."

Plus, according to a Semrush report, AI Overviews were triggered for 13.14% by March 2025, a 102% surge in just two months. Yet their presence is correlated with a 34.5% lower average clickthrough rate (CTR) for the top-ranking page, according to an Ahrefs study. 

What should be made of the paradoxical, new reality in the world of search? 

Beyond the blue clicks: A new user experience

For years, the battle in search marketing has been for a space above “the fold”. But now the fold itself may have become irrelevant. 

According to a joint study by Botify and Demand Sphere, when AIOs co-occur with featured snippets, which happens 60.5% of the time, they take up 67.1% of the visual real estate on desktop and 75.5% on mobile phones. This pushes organic links below “the fold.”

This emergent new Page 1 has understandably sparked fears of a “zero-click” scenario. A Pew analysis has found that users faced with AI-generated summaries are more likely to end their search without clicking a link. 

Yet, a Semrush report has found that zero-click rates for certain terms decreased slightly, from 38.12% to 36.23%. How can CTR fall so dramatically while zero-click rates also dip?

We are experiencing the slow death of the “casual click”. The AIO is acting as a qualification engine. For simple, low-intent, and informational queries, it shares sufficient answers.

And the user journey ends there. This accounts for the drops in CTR.

Google is no longer a directory of links. It is becoming an application in its own right. With AIOs, integrated video carousels, and “People Also Ask” boxes, the SERP is becoming a space intended to satisfy the user intent within its own walls. 

One study notes that this is contributing to the Walled Garden Effect, a phenomenon that keeps the user within the Google ecosystem. 

Earlier, you battled only business competitors for attention; now, you’re also competing with Google. 

How AI Overviews are reshaping SEO 

This new user experience requires more than acknowledging that SERP has changed. It demands a deeper understanding of the new rules of engagement. If the earlier method solely focused on climbing the ladder of links, the new one is about managing brand perceptions. 

Below are the ways in which AIOs are reshaping search marketing.

1. The rise of query space 

The keyword is no longer the indispensable unit of SEO. And it’s not dead either. When I explored Google’s patents, it revealed a core mechanism that can be described as “query fan-out”. In it, a single query is extrapolated into a matrix of related questions to capture the user’s total intent. Thus, AIO isn’t just answering the query; it’s answering a web of questions around it. 

This is because they are answering the next anticipated questions, not just the first one asked. I see our job as marketers shifting from winning keywords to building topical authority to become the inevitable source to satisfy the query space.

2. There is a third audience now: AI parsers

We used to write content for humans and search crawlers. Now, we have another audience: AI parsers. They don’t just read for keywords but for meaning, structure, and extractable facts. Content that is structurally summarizable and ready for extraction is becoming more important. 

This makes good structure critical, including:

• Clear headings
• Bullet points
• Concise paragraphs
• Schema and semantic clarity

As Abhishek G.P., Vice President of Growth at Atlan, puts it, “It’s no longer about just ranking for keywords or driving traffic. It’s about showing up in the places where AI assistants pull answers from and being seen as a trusted source.” This has changed his team's approach: “We think more like educators and product storytellers than traditional marketers.”  

3. Authenticity via UGC as a ranking factor

A study by Profound found that Reddit is the single largest source of citations for Google AI Overviews, at 21%, with YouTube following at 18.8%. This is a strategic shift that industry leaders are heeding. 

Director of SEO/Organic Search at Zendesk, Jessica Hill, admits that many principles of traditional SEO still apply to generative AI search. Citing the Profound study, she says, “We are strategically exploring how we can utilize these platforms to increase our visibility.”

The sentiment is also echoed by Leandro Perez, Chief Marketing Officer for Australia & New Zealand at Salesforce. “The most persuasive stories today come directly from customers,” he explains.

“Rather than sanitising user-generated content (UGC), we amplify it, especially when it reflects the real journey, the unexpected wins, and even the challenges overcome.”

Leandro Perez
Chief Marketing Officer for Australia & New Zealand at Salesforce

Most deals aren’t lost in boardrooms. You could be losing buyers in the micro-moments you aren't even tracking. Learn more.

4. The inverted economics of search 

The old search model was about volumes. AI Overviews is turning this model on its head. Semrush research has revealed that, based on conversion rate, the average AI search visitor is 4.4 times as valuable as the average visit from traditional organic search.

This means content creation efforts for AI Overviews must start at the bottom of the funnel. This is because on this platform, the value of a commercial-intent visitor is higher. You can capture fewer but far more valuable leads.

5. Measuring SEO ROI is getting harder

There are some platforms that help track traffic from AI Overviews, including Semrush and SEOmonitor. Yet, the unlinked brand mentions are among the new challenges in measurement, reports Exploding Topics. 

An AI platform can recommend your brand, prompting a user to visit your site. Yet, your analytics will consider only direct or branded search. The true source may remain invisible.

However, as answer inclusion doesn’t necessarily mean link inclusion, making the ROI of search marketing is becoming more abstract, perhaps tied to brand influence and sentiment rather than direct clicks.

The return-on-investment (ROI) of search marketing is becoming more abstract, perhaps tied to brand influence and sentiment rather than direct clicks, but potentially more impactful on the final sale.

To tackle such problems, Zendesk's Jessica recommends investing in a new data infrastructure that can measure the broader impact of these visibility efforts on actual business outcomes. 

6. The collapse of the traditional funnel into the SERP 

AIOs are also reshaping the buyer journey. Tag’s Ross describes the new process as “less searching and less clicking” and more “searching, reading, consuming, and deciding”. I believe this signifies the collapse of the traditional marketing funnel onto the search page. 

AIO serves the “Awareness” and “Consideration” stages of the funnel by sharing summaries and contexts. The later stages are when the user is more likely to click, much closer to the “Decision” stage. This means traditional SEO content must be optimized more for a qualified and informed user.

7. Brand mentions as the new currency 

The traditional focus on link building as the primary off-page signal is slowly shifting to brand mentions. 

“AIO is making us think about having a bigger digital footprint and inclusion in all of the directories. Press releases matter more now. Content marketing still matters. Guest blogging is more powerful than before.”

Andy Crestodina
Chief Marketing Officer of Orbit Media Studios

AI models learn about the world through language. So, having your brand mentioned more frequently can be a major way to train AI on your expertise and relevance.

The new mandate: From ranking to influencing

The immediate opportunity in search marketing is what I call “conversation capture.” This means positioning your brand as a solution provider and definitive voice in ongoing dialogues. 

Smart marketers will, on the one hand, continue to follow the fundamental principle of SEO — creating content useful to users. On the other hand, they will abandon the obsession with owning keywords. Instead, they will focus on building brand credibility on conversational threads like Reddit, Discord, and professional fora. 

The new emergent metrics will be the share of AI citations, sentiment within AI responses, and their influence on decision-making. Companies that can't quantify their AI ecosystem presence may find themselves invisible to the forthcoming generation of buyers who would rarely click through to websites. 

Buyers are increasingly turning to AI platforms to research new software. Learn how to sell to a buyer whose first impression comes from AI. Read more. 

FAQs

Do AI Overviews mean SEO is no longer important?

AI Overviews change how SEO works, not whether it matters. Traditional rankings alone are less visible, but search still determines which brands AI systems trust and cite. SEO now prioritizes topical authority, structured content, and brand credibility across the web. 

How can brands measure ROI if AI Overviews reduce clicks?

Measuring ROI in an AI-led search environment requires moving beyond last-click attribution. While AI Overviews may reduce direct traffic, they influence brand recall, consideration, and decision-making. Marketers should track brand mentions, sentiment, share of AI citations, and downstream branded or direct traffic to understand how AI visibility contributes to revenue over time.

What type of content is most likely to appear in AI Overviews?

AI Overviews favor content that is clear, structured, and grounded in real-world experiences. Pages that answer multiple related questions, use concise explanations, and include expert insights or user perspectives are more likely to be cited. Community discussions, reviews, and practical examples often outperform promotional content.