In May 2024, Google initiated a new phase in search by launching the AI Overviews in the United States. A year later, thanks to a study conducted by the SEO platform BrightEdge, we can understand the impact of Google’s AI-generated views, how they have transformed search and their implications for website results.
Although the AI Overviews were not introduced into Google search in Spain until March of 2025, knowing its evolution in the United States allows us to glimpse what may be the near future of SEO in our market. As we always tell you marketers, anticipating and being prepared is essential for success.
Contrary to what some anticipated, searches have not decreased due to the AI-generated views; instead, they have increased. Users are conducting more varied and frequent queries.
According to the study, since the implementation of AI Overviews in the United States, Google search impressions have increased by 49%. However, the click-through rate has not followed the same path, decreasing by 30%. This means that although people are more active in searching, many of their queries are covered by the information provided by AI Overviews.
This new reality presents challenges around traffic acquisition, highlighting the need to adopt content strategies focused on the value and depth of information, as well as strengthening the authority of your website. On the other hand, it will also be crucial to work on GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) to be cited by the AI Overviews.
Google does not apply AI-generated views equally across all types of searches or sectors. When discussing those sectors where a greater presence of AI Overviews is noted, we should mention the areas of Health, Education, B2B Technology, and Insurance.
In particular, Education and Health stand out, as in May 2025, 87% of queries related to these sectors showed AI-generated results on Google. The adoption of AI Overviews in B2B Technology searches grew from 36% to 70% in one year, while in Insurance it increased from 17% to 63%.
The content pertaining to these sectors is usually characterized by being factual, explanatory, and structured. These aspects are conditions that commonly increase the chances of being cited by an AI. Therefore, if you work in any of these areas, creating content that meets these standards will be a good GEO strategy.
For more information: A comprehensive overview of generative search today
The introduction of AI Overviews has endowed Google search with the ability to better understand complex and detailed searches. This does not match the extensive queries you can present to ChatGPT, but it has opened the door to being more natural when interacting with the search engine.
AI-generated views from Google appear more frequently for long and detailed queries that, in the past, would not have yielded enriched results. The frequency with which AI Overviews for searches of eight or more words have increased sevenfold since the launch of this feature. Additionally, there are significant increases in long-tail queries of four words and five to seven words.
Users have also adapted to the increased comprehensibility of Google’s AI regarding the technicality of the topics they research. There has been a 48% increase in technical vocabulary in specialized queries about health, AI, finance, and engineering.
The study provides the following example: while previously a person searched for “cloud storage,” they now tend to be more specific, searching for “microservices infrastructure for hybrid cloud deployment.”
AI Overviews enable people to use professional, precise, and specific terms to formulate complex questions about specific fields of knowledge. Given this, if you want your content to be cited by AI, you should focus on addressing these types of technical questions.
Another significant effect of adopting AI Overviews is the fact that ranking searches like “best mountain bikes 2025” have decreased by 60.5%. Meanwhile, comparative searches are also losing relevance, having dropped by 14.5%.
We can conclude that users trust the information received from AI Overviews, leading them to forgo these types of searches in favor of more contextualized queries that allow AI to make recommendations on its own. For example, instead of asking Google for the “best CRM software,” they now enter the query “CRM tools for remote sales teams.”
Google does not limit itself to extracting information only from the top-ranked pages in its search engine; it also collects data from websites that are not among the top results.
BrightEdge explains that, following the March 2025 core update, there was a 400% increase in the matching of citations corresponding to content positioned between ranks 21 and 30 in Google results. Similarly, citations from websites positioned between ranks 31 and 100 increased by 200%.
The study indicates that currently, 89% of all citations included in AI Overviews correspond to sites not listed in Google’s top 100 organic results. The search engine is extracting useful content regardless of its traditional position, which means your content can be cited in AI-generated views even if it is not well-ranked, as long as it provides value and is well-structured.
The AI Overviews view has become a prominent feature, exceeding 1,100 pixels in height, especially for searches on medical, financial, and procedural topics. The study notes that generally, 600 pixels is the height considered “above the fold”, meaning what is visible without scrolling down the screen.
Currently, AI Overviews include paragraphs of text, but also lists, bullet points, or carousels. The dimensions of AI Overviews have increased by more than 40% since July 2024, causing these views to push organic content to the background. This implies that your strategies should not only seek to appear among the top results of Google but also in its AI-generated responses.
Google’s AI-generated views appear more frequently in informational searches, while queries related to eCommerce generally do not integrate AI Overviews. For now, the search engine continues to rely on its traditional features and views to provide transactional results.
This stance by Google may be due to the fact that shopping is a sensitive topic and influencing it without sufficiently refining its AI could lead to unsatisfactory results for the user, causing trust issues.
Photo: GPT-4o
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