AI Overviews are taking over commercial searches

AI Overviews have become, in their own right, the most disruptive element in the search experience in many, many years. With them, Google gives users quick, “reasoned,” and fairly comprehensive answers to queries that previously sent traffic to websites, blogs, and online stores.

And of course, that is a problem for those websites, blogs, and online stores.

Semrush, one of the leading SEO tools on the market, analyzed over the course of a year how the presence of these types of automated answers has changed in the popular search engine, and the results are quite striking.

It seems almost impossible to run a commercially intent-driven query without triggering an AI Overview

Specifically, Semrush monitored 400 keywords across five groups of expressions, or “modifiers,” related to a commercial search (“alternatives,” “best X for Y,” “price/cost,” “reviews,” and “brand vs. brand”) and three industry categories (banking, eCommerce, and software). The analysis was conducted between September 2025 and August 2026 for the United States market, but I believe the trends we will see are fairly easy to extrapolate internationally.

As the study’s authors explain, the presence of AI Overviews in these queries is massive: “all modifier groups reached coverage above 80%. In September 2025, coverage ranged from 30.14% for ‘reviews’ to 63.41% for ‘brand comparisons.’ In August 2026, that range stood between 82.05% and 96.12%.”

Let us look at them one by one:

• “Alternatives”. In September 2025, AI Overviews appeared in 48.44% of queries mentioning “alternatives,” while a year later that coverage had already reached 82.81%
• “Best X for Y.” For this type of query, AI Overview coverage is nearly total: 96.12%, compared with 42.72% the previous year
• “Price/Cost.” This affects 82.05% of queries of this type, versus 43.59% a year earlier
• “Reviews.” This is the query type showing the strongest growth in AI Overview usage, rising from 30.14% to 89.04%
• “Brand Vs Brand.” Comparisons of this kind now trigger automated answers in 86.59% of cases.

When Semrush weighted the results by taking into account the estimated search volume of each keyword, AI Overview coverage reached 97.08%. In other words, the keywords that still were not triggering these automated answers represented barely 3% of the search volume analyzed.

As you can see, it now seems almost impossible to run this type of query on Google without triggering an AI Overview.

A cross-industry phenomenon

Another of the study’s key conclusions is that the presence of automated answers in clearly commercial queries cuts across industries, regardless of the sector being targeted. For example, AI Overviews appear in 91% of software-related queries, 89% of banking queries, and 85% of eCommerce queries.

To give you a sense of how significant this shift is, in September 2025 keyword coverage ranged from 32.62% in eCommerce to 68% in software. That represented a gap of more than 35 percentage points across the three sectors.

So… what should websites do?

With AI-generated answers, some of that information now appears directly in the search engine, ahead of the organic results. This does not mean online stores will stop receiving traffic, but it does mean that gaining visibility in AI Overviews is becoming a complementary goal alongside traditional SEO rankings.

In this regard, Semrush recommends analyzing which brands are mentioned in these answers, which sources Google uses, and how products are presented. Keeping product listings, comparison pages, and buying guides up to date, while also strengthening presence in media outlets and review platforms, can help brands become part of the answers their potential customers are consulting. A tool like Semrush can become your best ally in making that happen.

Image: ChatGPT