Do AI Overviews Reduce Clicks? 2026 Data and SEO Impact

In September 2025, Google’s AI Overviews showed up on 45.75% of the 400 commercial keywords in a Semrush study. By August 2026, they showed up on 88%.

A jump like that raises a fair question for any business: if Google answers at the top of the page, do AI Overviews reduce clicks to your site?

Two new studies help answer it. One, from Semrush, tracks where AI Overviews appear on the searches people make right before they buy. The other, from Seer Interactive, tracks what happens to clicks when they do.

The short answer: yes, AI Overviews cost clicks, but the drop leveled off in early 2026, and brands cited inside the Overview earn far more clicks than brands left out.

How often do AI Overviews show up now?

Semrush’s October study followed the same 400 commercial keywords across banking, software and ecommerce from September 2025 to August 2026. Each keyword included a word people use when they’re close to a decision: alternatives, vs, best X for Y, price or cost, and reviews.

Over that year, AI Overview coverage went from 45.75% of those keywords to 88%. Weighted by search volume, it’s even higher at 97.08%. The 12% of keywords without an AI Overview made up less than 3% of the searches.

Every type of decision search climbed:

• Best X for Y searches: 96.12% coverage, the highest of any type
• Reviews searches: from about 30% to about 90%, the biggest jump at 59 points
• Alternatives searches: up 34 points, to more than 82%
• Brand vs brand searches: up 23 points from 63.41%, the highest starting point, to more than 86%

The three industries ended up close together, all between 85% and 91%. Ecommerce made the biggest move, from 32.62% to 85.11%. A few combinations hit 100%: best X for Y in banking and software, and alternatives in software. Even the slowest movers climbed. Price and cost searches in ecommerce went from 4.76% to 71.43%.

For a business, that means a search for what you sell with a decision word attached will very likely show an AI Overview before it shows your site.

Do AI Overviews reduce clicks?

On average, yes, though early 2026 brought some of the lost clicks back.

Seer Interactive’s April update looked at 53 brands, 5.47 million queries and 2.43 billion organic impressions from January 2025 through February 2026. On searches with an AI Overview, the organic click rate (CTR) slid through 2025:

• December 2025: 1.3%, the lowest in 14 months
• February 2026: 2.4%, an 85% rebound in two months

Searches without an AI Overview still earned more, with organic CTR rising from 2.8% in January 2025 to 3.8% in February 2026.

So AI Overviews still cost clicks compared with searches that don’t have one. But the slide that ran through 2025 didn’t carry into 2026. Every informational and transactional segment Seer tracked beat its projections in January and February.

Paid clicks moved too. On searches without an AI Overview, paid CTR dropped from 26% to 21.8%. On searches with one, it rose from 14.6% to 16.2%.

Does being cited in an AI Overview help?

This is the most useful finding in the Seer data. When a brand was cited in the AI Overview, it earned 120% more organic clicks per impression than when it wasn’t. On informational searches, that’s still 38% below searches with no AI Overview at all, but it’s a big gap between cited and not cited.

Brands that weren’t cited took the hardest hit. Their organic CTR fell 67% over 2025, across 311 million impressions. That works out to about 13,000 fewer clicks for every million impressions.

Seer also flagged something that matters when you read your own reports. On informational searches where a brand was cited, impressions more than doubled in a single month while clicks barely moved:

• September 2025: 15.8 million impressions, 398,798 clicks, 2.52% CTR
• October 2025: 33.1 million impressions, 400,271 clicks, 1.21% CTR
• November 2025: 39.5 million impressions, 301,783 clicks, 0.76% CTR

The CTR fell by more than two thirds in two months, and most of that drop came from impressions climbing much faster than clicks fell. Seer says the surge could mean brands earned citations on more searches, or that Google changed how it picks sources. Either way, its advice is the one we’d tape to the monitor: “always look at clicks and impressions separately” before calling something a problem.

Why do the two studies seem to disagree?

Semrush says AI Overviews are on nearly every commercial search. Seer found them on 36% of informational queries, but only 8% of commercial queries and 5% of transactional ones.

Both can be true, because they measured different things. Semrush built a fixed set of keywords that all include a decision word. Seer looked at every query its brands track and sorted them by what showed up on the results page.

Seer’s own breakdown of informational searches points the same way as Semrush. Comparison searches triggered an AI Overview 95.4% of the time (267 of 280), and question searches 85.9% of the time. Single word searches still got one 27.3% of the time.

In both studies, the closer a search is to a comparison or a question, the more likely it is to get an AI Overview.

Can you see AI Overview traffic in Search Console?

Not on its own. Google’s documentation on AI features says traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode is counted in the Search Console Performance report as part of the regular Web search type. Google doesn’t report it as its own search type.

The same page says there’s no special markup or AI text file required to appear in AI Overviews. A page has to be indexed and eligible to show in Google Search with a snippet. Google also says clicks from results pages with AI Overviews are higher quality, with people more likely to spend more time on the site.

How we read our own Search Console

We read our own site the way Seer recommends. Over the four weeks from September 28 to October 25, our homepage held an average position of 3.3 across 1,049 impressions. On a page like that, an AI Overview could sit above us on some searches and not on others, and Search Console won’t say which.

So we don’t read the click rate by itself. We pull clicks and impressions as two separate lines, then look at which queries each page shows up for. Comparison and question searches are where both studies found AI Overviews most often. If a page’s impressions come mostly from those searches, and its CTR slides while impressions climb, that’s the pattern Seer described. The fix is to earn the citation.

If your pages aren’t getting impressions at all, the problem starts earlier: see why blog posts don’t get indexed and what we changed on our own.

What AI Overviews mean for your SEO

Both studies point the same direction:

1. Track clicks and impressions separately. A falling CTR can simply mean you’re showing up more often. Look at both lines before deciding anything.
2. Aim for the citation. Seer found cited brands earned 120% more organic clicks per impression than brands left out. Our playbook for getting cited by AI search covers how.
3. Keep comparison and pricing pages current. These decision searches are where Semrush found AI Overviews nearly everywhere. In its Mailchimp vs Klaviyo example, the AI Overview cited Klaviyo’s own guide alongside Zapier, a YouTube video and another third party site. A brand’s own comparison page can be one of the sources.
4. Show up where AI Overviews pull from. Reviews on the sites that get cited, and YouTube videos, can put your name in the answer even when your own page isn’t the one linked.
5. Watch AI traffic outside Google too. ChatGPT and Perplexity send visitors and cite sources. You can track ChatGPT traffic in GA4 to see it.

FAQ

Do AI Overviews reduce clicks to websites?

Yes, on average. Seer Interactive found organic CTR on searches with an AI Overview slid through 2025 to a low of 1.3% in December. It recovered to 2.4% by February 2026, while searches without an AI Overview reached 3.8%.

How often do AI Overviews appear in Google search?

It depends on the search. Semrush found AI Overviews on 88% of a fixed set of commercial keywords by August 2026. Among informational searches, Seer found them on 95.4% of comparisons, 85.9% of questions and 27.3% of single word searches.

Does being cited in an AI Overview increase clicks?

Yes. Seer found cited brands earned 120% more organic clicks per impression than brands that weren’t cited. Brands left out saw organic CTR drop 67% over 2025.

How do AI Overviews affect SEO?

They change what a strong result looks like. AI Overviews show up most on comparison and question searches, they lower organic CTR on average, and Seer found cited brands earn 120% more organic clicks per impression than brands left out. Earning the citation is now part of SEO.

Can I see AI Overview traffic in Google Search Console?

Not separately. Google counts AI Overview and AI Mode traffic in the Performance report as part of the Web search type, not as its own search type.

Do I need special markup to appear in AI Overviews?

No. Google says there’s no special schema or AI text file required. A page needs to be indexed and eligible to show in Google Search with a snippet.

AI Overviews and SEO in 2026

AI Overviews are on most of the searches that matter for buying decisions, and they cost clicks when your brand isn’t in them. But the decline flattened out in 2026, and brands that earn the citation get a real share of the clicks back. The work now is being the source the answer cites, and it’s how we approach SEO and website design.

Wondering what AI Overviews are doing to your traffic? Book a 15-minute call and we’ll read your Search Console data with you. No deck, no fluff. Strategy first. Tactics second. The work works.

Reliable PR & Marketing is a strategy-first marketing agency in Bakersfield, California. We run integrated SEO, PR, web, and content for founder-led companies across Kern County and nationwide. Strategy first. Execution always.