Key takeaways
- 25.8% of the 2.37 million queries we analysed returned a Google AI Overview box
- Queries of more than 8 words have a 57.3% chance of showing an AI Overview in the results
- The sectors most affected are pets and animals, mental health and personal finance
- Informational queries are the most affected, with 39% of them producing an AI Overview
- Queries containing "near me" show 70% fewer AI Overviews
- Queries that start with "Why" or "How" trigger the most AI Overviews
Everyone is talking about it: businesses are wondering what it means for their future, and anyone who uses the internet is watching it happen in front of them.
Yes, we are talking about AI Overviews.
Plenty of sceptics expected it to be a passing phase. It isn't: AI Overviews are here to stay and will take up more and more of the results page.
In March 2025, around one in five Google searches (18% in Pew Research Center's sample) produced an AI summary, and the share is expected to grow as Google uses the feature more widely. What does this mean for your SEO strategy?
To find out, we analysed more than 2.3 million keywords. Below is what we found and what it means for your search strategy.
When do AI Overviews appear most often?
One of the clearest findings of the analysis is that AI Overviews appear more often for longer queries, those of more than 8 words.
This is how our set of 2.3 million keywords broke down:
| Words in the query | Share of dataset | AI Overview rate | Example |
| 1-2 words | 21.4% | 17.8% | "dog training" |
| 3-4 words | 56.7% | 23.5% | "best dog trainer" |
| 5-6 words | 18.5% | 32.9% | "how to train my dog" |
| 7 words | 4.4% | 46.2% | "average cost to hire a dog trainer" |
| 8+ words | 3.4% | 57.3% | "how to find the best trainer for my dog" |
What this means for your business
In short, the longer the query, the more likely an AI Overview is to appear.
SEOs have long recommended targeting long-tail keywords as part of a successful SEO strategy, and that still holds. At the same time, you may see clicks from long-tail searches fall (even when your rankings are good), because those searches are more likely to show an AI Overview.
If you optimise these pages to appear in AI Overviews, you may get more visibility than before. That means more brand exposure, but potentially fewer clicks whenever an AI Overview shows up in the results.
That extra brand visibility in AI Overviews can lead to follow-up searches for your brand that send traffic straight to your business.
Which types of query trigger AI Overviews?
You might wonder whether AI Overviews appear at random. Does Google's algorithm actually decide when to show one? It does, and it all starts from search intent.
Google shows these summaries mainly for queries where the user wants to find information, rather than buy something or reach a specific website.
Here is the data:
| Search intent | AI Overview rate (queries of any length) | AI Overview rate (queries of 8+ words) |
| Informational | 38.7% | 67.2% |
| Commercial | 21.3% | 44.8% |
| Transactional | 15.8% | 30.4% |
| Navigational | 11.4% | 22.0% |
Across all query lengths, AI Overviews are less likely to appear for transactional or navigational queries. The rate goes up, however, once the keyword reaches 8 words or more.
What this means for your business
You need to account for AI Overviews on every type of query, but above all on informational ones. These attract the most AI Overviews, so informational articles and other top-of-the-funnel content should be written and optimised with AI Overviews in mind.
Also bear in mind that if your SEO results depend on a handful of commercial or transactional keywords, an AI Overview appearing on them could put your annual targets at risk. Track those keywords to check whether AI Overviews show up, so you can adjust in time.
Which sectors are most affected by AI Overviews?
Almost every sector is affected by AI Overviews, but some more than others, and how much the drop weighs can be measured on your own data. Depending on the type of queries that bring in revenue, you may be hit harder than other sectors.
If you rely heavily on informational queries for revenue, AI Overviews will hit you harder than a sector that relies mostly on transactional queries.
Which sectors are most exposed? This is what our data shows:
| Sector | AI Overview rate | Likelihood |
| Pets and animals | 45.2% | High |
| Travel guides | 37.1% | High |
| Crafts and DIY | 34.6% | High |
| Mental health | 33.9% | High |
| Personal finance | 32.8% | High |
| Sporting goods | 14.2% | Low |
| Clothing | 11.9% | Low |
| Tickets and events | 11.5% | Low |
What this means for your business
If your sector is heavily affected by AI Overviews, as in the examples above, start adapting your strategy now to cope with less traffic and fewer clicks. But what can you do if you rely on informational queries for revenue?
A few suggestions:
- Offer high-value resources: generative AI cannot replicate tools such as calculators or diagnostic tools. Offering them gives searchers something they cannot get elsewhere, AI Overviews included.
- Use original research and data: AI cannot produce original research or data. Publishing it sets you apart from competitors and from AI Overviews.
- Gate premium content: if you have high-value resources that are not available on the web, such as reports or templates, put them behind a form. AI cannot read gated resources, so users can only get the information by visiting your website and leaving their email address in exchange.
How does AI affect local queries?
With AI Overviews affecting so many informational searches, you may be wondering: what about local searches?
Local searches are a category of their own: they use location-based or "near me" keywords to help users find businesses and products in their area. Given how many other types of search are affected by AI Overviews, you might expect local search to be affected too.
The reality? AI Overviews appear less often on local searches.
Our data shows a drop of around 70% (from 35% to 10%) in AI Overviews for queries containing "near me". They can still appear, but for now they are much less common.
What this means for your business
Now is the time to strengthen your local SEO strategy, especially if you work in a sector where AI Overviews are a high risk on other queries (healthcare and finance, for example). Local SEO will be a major source of qualified traffic for your business.
And if Google starts showing more AI Overviews on local queries, an optimised strategy (including local structured data) will put your business in a good position to appear in those overviews, if and when they arrive.
Which types of question produce AI Overviews?
People often search with question words such as "why" or "how". Are some of these words more likely than others to produce AI Overviews?
After analysing 2.3 million queries, our data says yes. This is what we found:
| Question word | Example | Average query length | AI Overview rate |
| Why | "Why is my car making a popping noise?" | 8.2 words | 41.3% |
| How | "How to fix a broken fence" | 7.5 words | 38.1% |
| Can/Could/Do | "Can you paint roof tiles?" | 6.9 words | 29.4% |
| What | "What is a skid steer?" | 6.1 words | 24.7% |
| When | "When can you eat after a filling?" | 6.3 words | 23.9% |
| Where | "Where is the best sushi restaurant?" | 5.8 words | 18.6% |
| Brand first | "Argos return policy without receipt" | 4.3 words | 8.7% |
As the data shows, queries using "why" or "how" are the most likely to show AI Overviews. Queries using "where" or starting with a brand name are the least likely.
Here is a breakdown of content types and how likely they are to trigger AI Overviews:
| Likelihood | Content types |
| High | "Why" explainers "How to" guides and tutorials In-depth informational content targeting explanatory queries |
| Moderate | Definitions and explanations using "What" Queries about possibility: "Can/Could/Do" |
| Low | Location-based "where" content Brand-first content Time-based "when" content |
What this means for your business
If you target a lot of question keywords, make sure your search strategy accounts for AI Overviews. They are very likely to appear for many of these question-based queries.
How to approach content and keyword targeting, by likelihood:
- High: for question queries in the high-likelihood group, optimise your content for AI Overviews. Since one is likely to appear, optimising for it raises your chances of being cited (and so of being at the top of the results).
- Moderate: most moderate-likelihood content is about definitions or possibilities (for example "What is an ISA?" or "Do you pay tax on a Lifetime ISA?"). Answer these questions directly: if an AI Overview does appear, a concise answer makes you more likely to be included.
- Low: content targeting "where", "when" and brand-first keywords is less likely to show AI Overviews, probably because these are mostly transactional and navigational queries. You can still prepare that content by adding structured data and improving readability.
AI Overviews and Google Ads
Across all 2.3 million keywords, we also found some patterns linking AI Overviews and Google Ads. Do AI Overviews appear more or less often when ads are on the results page?
This is what we found:
| Number of ads on the SERP | Share of dataset | AI Overview rate |
| 0 ads | 44.2% | 33.2% |
| 1 ad at the top of the page | 24.3% | 24.7% |
| 2+ ads (top + bottom) | 17.1% | 17.5% |
| Shopping carousel + ≥1 ad | 14.4% | 9.4% |
What does this tell us?
- Google is more likely to show AI Overviews when there are no paid ads on the page. The AI Overview rate falls by about 25% when a single ad appears.
- Shopping-related queries are less likely to come with an AI Overview. If you run Google Shopping ads, you will not see AI Overviews very often.
CPC and AI Overviews
Now that you have seen how ads and AI Overviews relate, you might ask whether cost per click and AI Overviews have any effect on each other.
Our data suggests not: the correlation between CPC and whether an AI Overview appears is not statistically significant enough to draw conclusions. In other words, the cost per click does not affect the likelihood of an AI Overview appearing.
Rather than CPC, look at the correlation between the intent of your keywords and whether an AI Overview appears.
Here is the correlation with AI Overviews by intent type:
| Intent type | Correlation with an AI Overview appearing | What it means |
| Commercial | -0.050 | Commercial keywords are unlikely to trigger AI Overviews |
| Transactional | -0.087 | Transactional keywords are less likely to show AI Overviews |
| Navigational | -0.159 | Navigational queries are even less likely to show AI Overviews |
| Informational | +0.241 | Informational queries are more likely to show AI Overviews |
So AI Overviews are more likely to appear for informational queries and less likely for navigational, transactional or commercial ones. If you run ads on those searches, you will rarely have to compete with an AI Overview at the top of the page.
What this means for your business
For now, AI Overviews are less likely to appear on the searches where you run ads, because most of those queries are transactional, navigational or commercial.
You will mainly need to watch for AI Overviews if you run ads on informational queries, for example to promote blog content or recent research and case studies.
What does this data mean for the future of SEO?
So, after all this data on AI Overviews, what does it actually mean for the future of SEO?
A few conclusions we can draw:
- For now, whether an AI Overview appears seems to depend mainly on user intent.
- The longer and more informational the query, the more likely an AI Overview is to appear.
- Transactional and navigational queries tend to keep the traditional look of the results page and are less likely to have AI Overviews
- Most local queries do not show AI Overviews
- Sectors that rely on informational queries for revenue will lose more traffic and clicks than those that rely on transactional queries
What does this mean in practice? Some key points:
- If AI Overviews are hurting your SEO results, PPC can be a sensible way to diversify your marketing. It can help you win back high-value traffic and keep revenue coming in.
- If your SEO strategy is underperforming, you can still optimise it and use it as a brand awareness and lead generation channel. AI Overviews do not appear on every informational query, so there is still room to improve rankings on the ones that do not show them.
- If you have a solid SEO strategy, now is the time to start optimising for AI Overviews. They are not going away, so it is better to adapt now and get ahead of your competitors.
- Get your local SEO strategy ready. Local SEO relies heavily on structured data, which makes it easy for AI to use. A well-established local SEO strategy lets you get ahead of any changes to local search in the future.
The point is to act on the opportunities now and stay a step ahead of the competition. AI Overviews are here to stay and will keep changing, so it is better to adapt now than to scramble to catch up later.
Start optimising your SEO strategy for AI now
AI Overviews are not going away. If anything, they will appear on more searches. Although AI Overviews can give wrong information, they will keep improving and becoming more accurate over time.
That means more and more people will use them to find the information they need.
Now is the time to prepare your strategy and do the analysis needed to appear in AI Overviews, so you are ready as they take up more of the search results.
If you are not sure how to approach optimisation for AI Overviews, that is what our AI SEO services are for. We help you optimise your website for AI Overviews and other generative AI engines such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.
Get in touch to find out how we can help you future-proof your SEO strategy.
