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Over the last few years, the industries of entertainment, media, travel, finance, real estate, retail, e-commerce, and so many more have all made great strides towards utilising and implementing artificial intelligence. The concept of AI itself is infamously controversial, and the impact of AI in everyday life is widely discussed. The obvious implications of stripping away human input not just in some of the more everyday, menial grunt work of many of these industries, but in fields of art, is an understandable sore point for many. Regardless, artificial intelligence is here for the long haul, and in digital marketing, this can be seen no more evident than in the recent movements made by Google.
Nearly 6 months after the launch of the widely-discussed AI Overview search feature, in 2025 and beyond, we can now look back at the impact this new feature has had on user behaviour, organic performance, and SEO in general while also looking towards the future. What will the overall effect of Google AI Overviews be on SEO, and will it be positive or negative?
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Broadly speaking, Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think, learn, and make decisions. It encompasses technologies like machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision, enabling systems to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as problem-solving, recognising patterns, and adapting to new information.
What are the common uses of AI?
AI is widely used across various industries to improve efficiency and decision-making. AI is most commonly seen in the following industries in an attempt to achieve these goals.
Industry | Applications of AI |
Automation | Streamlines repetitive tasks in manufacturing and customer service. |
Healthcare | Assists with diagnostics, drug discovery, and personalised treatment plans. |
Finance | Fraud detection, algorithmic trading, and risk management. |
Retail | Powers personalised recommendations, inventory management, and chatbots. |
Transportation | Enables autonomous vehicles and route optimisation. |
Education | Supports adaptive learning platforms and automated grading. |
Entertainment | Enhances content recommendations on streaming services and game design. |
Marketing | Drives targeted advertising and consumer behaviour insights. |
What is a Google AI Overview?
Google AI Overviews, previously known as the 'search generative experience,' are a long-anticipated feature now integrated into Google's search engine. While this innovation has been available in the US for some time, it has gradually made its way into broader use across the UK and the rest of the globe. AI Overviews are intended to deliver concise, conversational information summaries tailored to user search queries. Powered by advanced AI, these overviews aim to present the most relevant and accurate details for each search term, supposedly continuing Google's commitment to connecting users with more meaningful and engaging content quicker.
Essentially, these AI Overviews pop up at the very top of the SERPs to quickly answer a user's search query, and it does so by using generative AI to provide these answers. The screenshot below shows an example of what these AI Overviews look like in SERPs.
As you can see, these overviews will usually include the following 4 things.
A direct answer provided by Google Gemini
Links to relevant websites that are cited as sources for the direct answer.
Visual indicators that show the content has been generated by AI.
If relevant, you may also see Ads.
What is the point of Google AI Overviews?
We very briefly covered this point in the above section, but for many people, the simple question on their mind is, “Why?”. In a blog article by Liz Reid (Head of Search at Google), Reid states that these AI Overviews aim to “take the legwork out of searching”. A fairly broad point, then, but we can take this to mean that Google’s public perspective on why these overviews were launched is to make the quality of information available to users with their searches easier to obtain, more accurate to their searches, and more quickly available.
In my opinion, these AI Overviews also exist for the very simple reason that Artificial Intelligence is seen as the next big technological advancement, and to not start implementing AI in some fashion on their search engine would be seen as “standing still” in some way. We can see this by reading between the lines of this quote from Liz Reid.
“Over the past 25 years, across many technological shifts, we’ve continued to reimagine and expand what Google Search can do. We’ve meticulously honed our core information quality systems to help you find the best of what’s on the web”.
Ergo, ‘we at Google are always evolving and staying ahead of the times, so here’s our latest advancement’. The consumer-facing purpose of introducing this feature is to improve the quality of search for users, while the more likely answer is that Google is engaged in a bit of an “arms race” to stake their claim to this latest technology and be seen as a trendsetter.
ChatGPT and the AI Arms Race
That phrase is a little bit dramatic, but it serves as a neat way of summarising the madcap lunging forward towards AI that is currently taking place. Not just in the fields of marketing and SEO - but everywhere. Google is no different; all the largest conglomerates and tech giants want their slice of the AI pie. In fact, it could be argued (if not outright stated) that Google’s rush to AI was a direct response to the emergence of ChatGPT, the chatbot launched by OpenAI in 2022. Google’s use of Gemini AI (formerly Bard) is mirrored by Amazon’s use of Anthropic AI and Bing’s utilisation of Meta. Artificial Intelligence is everywhere, and this AI Overview feature will most likely not be the first or the last AI feature pushed out by Google.
How have AI Overviews impacted SEO?
With the rise of AI-generated overviews in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs), the landscape of SEO and organic traffic is undergoing a significant shift. These new features are changing how users interact with search results, altering the traditional hierarchy and impacting key metrics like click-through rates (CTR) and overall website traffic. In this section, we’ll explore how the structure of SERPs is evolving with the introduction of AI overviews and the implications this has for site traffic, CTR, and SEO strategies moving forward.
The Structure of SERPs
It is important to recognise that, above all else, these AI Overviews have fundamentally changed SERPs in Google. An absolute win in SEO will usually look like a Position 1 ranking for your most valuable keyword, and perhaps a position in one of the more dominant rich snippets that can appear for certain queries. These overviews, however, are now the most attention-grabbing thing you will see in the SERPs (when appearing). They appear at the top of the SERP, commonly as a decently long paragraph accompanied by images and citations. This is a striking change to the SERP hierarchy that SEOs must account for when optimising.
Overall Site Traffic and CTR
In large part due to the SERP structure changes, it can be argued that these AI Overviews will significantly impact the amount of organic traffic seen by sites and the CTR of other SERP features. Liz Reid said as much in that same blog article linked earlier, stating that:
“And we see that the links included in AI Overviews get more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing for that query.”
There are a few different ways to interpret this statement, some of which follow a certain amount of logic. As already discussed, these overview panels are attention-grabbing and dominant, featuring a variety of clickable and interactive elements. It stands to reason that users may be more naturally drawn to these panels than the other, more traditional blue text links listed on SERPs. Mathematically, the AI overview panels feature fewer links than the 10 links on each SERP; the fewer options for the user, the higher the CTR.
The prominence of features like AI overviews and Copilot on search result pages (SERPs) may reduce overall click-through rates (CTR) to other elements, especially the traditional 10 blue links. While AI overview links might see higher CTRs, the total clicks from the SERP could decline, leading to more zero-click search sessions and impacting organic traffic to websites.
Zero-Click Searches
A zero-click search is a search query where the user finds the information they need directly on the search engine results page (SERP) without clicking on any additional links. This often happens when search engines display featured snippets, knowledge panels, or direct answers, such as weather updates, definitions, or quick facts. With the advent of AI overviews in Google, many users will (in theory) be seeing a direct answer to their query without actually needing to click any links or visit any sites directly, meaning an increase in the number of zero-click searches is inevitable.
Optimisation Strategies
Despite the breadth of the shake-up offered by these sweeping changes to SERPs and KPIs, there is no reason for SEOs to be alarmed in terms of how they are optimising websites. In order for the AI Overviews to properly function, Google needs to have a stock of high-quality content to pull from in order to generate the right responses. If the meta of SEO becomes ranking for these overviews first and foremost, nothing about SEO actually needs to change. Websites still need to be as well optimised as they can be for all of the same things as always - this will likely never change for as long as Google is around, to be honest.
What has the User Response been?
Bad. In Liz Reid’s article, she makes the claim that:
“People have already used AI Overviews billions of times through our experiment in Search Labs. They like that they can get both a quick overview of a topic and links to learn more. We’ve found that with AI Overviews, people use Search more, and are more satisfied with their results”.
This may well be true, and Google will obviously know through their own surveys and experiments how well the user base has taken to this new feature. But I don’t believe her! I have yet to meet a real-life human who enjoys these AI overview panels, and there has been a growing contingent of dissatisfied users flooding online forums and messageboards to discuss this fact. The most common complaints you’ll see are:
They provide incorrect, misleading, nonsensical, and potentially dangerous answers to user queries. Search Engine Land has a fantastic article detailing some of the funniest and most whimsical word salad pumped out by AIOs.
They actively get in the way of the user finding a quick and logical answer to certain types of queries. The AI Overview panels, in many cases, supersede rich snippets that would normally provide recipes, opening times, operating hours, and dates.
The Gemini AI model has been trained using content taken from Reddit; given that a lot of the content on Reddit isn’t objective or true in any sense, this delegitimises the answers provided.
Users cannot turn the AI Overview feature off or on. A successful feature would not have outcry centred around the fact that it can’t be turned off, which speaks for itself.
Google may have data showing users appreciate the new AI overview panels, but many seem dissatisfied. Online forums are filled with complaints, and common frustrations like the ones above are being widely discussed.
What do I think of Google’s AI Overviews?
I haven’t actually had the pleasure of running into these overviews in the wild yet. I can assume my system isn’t one of the ones that’s been chosen to test it, and Search Labs isn’t available to me either. My partner has run into some of these AI Overview panels, though, and let me tell you, it’s everything I dreamed it would be. Utterly nonsensical slop that does nothing for anyone. To be honest, Google’s AI Overviews are a bit of an embarrassment and seem to be the latest sign that Google is completely out of touch with what its users want and what the rest of the industry is doing. The fact that they were obviously a panicked response to ChatGPT doesn’t help; you don’t really get the sense that Gemini (or Bard) has been rigorously tested and is ready for the stage its on. Is there a future for AI in SERPs? Most definitely. It’s not a future that I’m particularly looking forward to, but I’m hoping we’re not too far into 2025 before Google’s chuckle-bot stops telling users to run with scissors, put glue in pizza, and eat rocks.
Do they improve SERPs?
I just plum don’t see the point in using AI to aggregate a direct answer to a user’s query. When someone has an urgent question with an objective answer, the rich snippet usually has a pretty definitive answer for the user. Any other query on Google is fair game; it’s up to the user to scour the SERPs for the product, service, or answer they’re looking for, and the skill of SEO is in creating a website that provides these answers and ranks well for these keywords and queries. All an AI Overview does is cram together a casserole of half-answers into a small paragraph. Even if the AI worked perfectly and wasn’t giving out deranged answers, you are effectively left with a much smaller competitive landscape of a SERP. Users would have no need to look past the overview panel, rendering the rest of the traditional blue text links completely moot.
Is this an improvement? I hardly think so. Say what you will about the worsening quality of ranking links on SERPs, but they are clearly signposted and have metadata and accordions that provide the user with a lot of context. I don’t think the AI panels can say the same.
The Hypocrisy of Google
If you’ve been keeping up with any of the recent Google Algorithm Updates, you will have seen that the vast majority of them cover the idea of improving the quality of SERPs and hammering home the best practices of content writing for webmasters to follow. Things like EEAT and YMYL content, for example. They want you, the writer, to be curating deep, researched, valuable, and informative content for their users, and Google only wants to reward the sites that follow these best practices. They want users to click through to well-made and maintained websites that can be trusted.
It seems awfully hypocritical, then, that the whole point of an AI Overview panel is to dumb down the process of querying for users. To remove the need for them to actually click onto a website, and to have all the answers they need at the top of the SERP. I am fully onboard with the idea that ranking content needs to be of a good quality, and obviously the Gemini AI is going to be trained on good quality content (in theory), thereby providing better answers for users. But some topics can’t be answered in a single paragraph. Some topics require blog articles and whitepapers, and have nuance and several points to make. The idea that many user queries will inevitably be fed a slop paragraph of incorrect and/or irrelevant information seems antithetical to what Google has been asking for for decades.
The Wider Implications of AI
On the wider topic of AI, I have to say I’m really not a fan. I’m a writer at heart, and the presence of AI in so many creative spaces now is demoralising. I see the vision for AI in automating administrative grunt work and reporting, but AI movie trailers, songs, blogs, artwork, and whatever else…no thanks. Language is the most important human tool - how we communicate and express ourselves. At its core, SEO is a way to use language to bring the best quality information to users who ask the right questions. I don’t particularly like the idea that the skill of my job could be boiled down to a formula that a robot could do. Especially a robot that advises users to drink their own piss.
Is this the Death of SEO?
One of my previous criticisms of Google’s AI Overview panels is that they do nothing to improve the quality of answers to user queries. However, the fact remains that the process of SEO is going to remain the same as it’s always been. Google wants you to write authoritative content that covers topics as deeply as possible, your websites to run as technically smooth as butter, and your websites to have a strong backlink profile that demonstrates authority and expertise. These are the reasons Google ranks your website in position 1 in the SERPs, and these are the exact same reasons they will use to pick out your content for their AI sludge.
Business as usual, then. Google AI Overviews have muddied the waters and complicated matters; they’ve made it harder to report on some key metrics, while peeing off most of their users. However, the fundamentals of SEO are the same as they’ve always been; in that regard, their impact has been (and will be) minimal. If you are interested in working on an SEO project with yours truly, feel free to contact me today!
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