Google now answers many questions itself, at the top of the page, before anyone sees a blue link. If your SEO plan still counts on ranking for “what is X” and “how does Y work”, traffic will keep sliding even when rankings hold. The searches that still send clicks are the ones where a summary falls short: comparisons, tools, brand searches, and problems specific enough that the searcher has to see your page.
What the data says about clicks
In March 2025, Pew Research Center tracked the browsing of 900 US adults. According to its July 2025 analysis, 58% of the 68,879 searches in the sample showed an AI summary. When a summary appeared, people clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits. Without one, they clicked in 15% of visits. Links cited inside the summary were clicked in just 1% of visits.
Ahrefs compared click-through rates for 300,000 keywords using aggregated Search Console data. Its April 2025 study found a 34.5% lower average click-through rate for the top-ranking page when an AI Overview was present. When it re-ran the analysis in February 2026, comparing December 2023 with December 2025, the gap had grown to 58% at position one. Ahrefs is clear that this is a correlation and a modelled estimate, and that it used desktop data only.
Seer Interactive tracked 3,119 informational queries across 42 client organisations. In its September 2025 update, organic click-through rate on queries with an AI Overview fell from 1.76% in June 2024 to 0.61% in September 2025. Queries without an AI Overview fell too, from 2.74% to 1.62%. So clicks dropped even where Google showed no AI answer, which points to people getting answers elsewhere, chat assistants included, before they ever search.
Pew, Ahrefs and Seer measured this in different ways and still landed in the same place.
Google’s own position is different in tone. Its documentation on AI features says clicks from pages with AI Overviews are “higher quality”, meaning people are more likely to spend more time on the site. It doesn’t contradict the numbers above. Fewer people click, and the ones who do are further along.
Which searches lose clicks and which keep them
AI Overviews are no longer limited to definitions. Semrush’s study of more than 10 million keywords found that commercial-intent keywords made up 18.57% of the keywords triggering an AI Overview in October 2025, up from 8.15% a year earlier. Transactional keywords rose from 1.98% to 13.94% over the same period, while the informational share fell. Assume there will be an AI answer. What decides your clicks is whether that answer finishes the job.
The table is a rule of thumb for reviewing a keyword list.
| Query type | Example | Effect on clicks | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Definitions and simple facts | “what is churn rate” | Loses most | The summary is the whole answer |
| Generic how-to with a short answer | “how to add a favicon” | Loses many | Steps fit in a paragraph |
| Broad “best X” lists | “best CRM” | Mixed | AI lists brands, but people still click to check |
| Comparisons and alternatives | “X vs Y for agencies” | Keeps more | Buyers want detail, screenshots and pricing |
| Tools and calculators | “UTM builder”, “sample size calculator” | Keeps most | You cannot use a calculator inside a summary |
| Templates and downloads | “content calendar template” | Keeps most | The asset lives on your page |
| Specific troubleshooting | “GA4 purchase event not firing after consent update” | Keeps more | The answer depends on context the AI may not have |
| Branded and navigational | “your brand pricing” | Keeps most | People want the official page |
| Original data | “B2B buying cycle length 2025” | Mixed, but cited | Your page becomes the source the summary quotes |
Read down the right-hand column and a pattern shows. Anything that requires doing something on your page, such as using a tool, downloading a file or checking a price, keeps its clicks. Anything that requires judgement about the reader’s situation keeps more of them than a generic answer does.
Sorting the content you already have
Don’t respond by deleting every informational page. Some still rank, still get cited and still feed internal links. Sort them instead.
Pages to merge or let go
Short definition posts with no unique angle, written to catch a keyword, are the most exposed. If a page gets impressions but almost no clicks, and has no links or conversions, merge it into a stronger guide or retire it. Fewer, deeper pages are easier to keep current.
Pages to deepen
Pages answering generic how-to questions can be rewritten to go past the summary. Add what an AI answer usually skips: edge cases, the “it depends” decisions, real screenshots, a worked example with numbers, and what to do when the standard advice fails. Your help docs can work as a search channel here, since product-specific troubleshooting is the context a general summary lacks.
Pages to build
Put new effort into the bottom half of the table. Honest comparison pages with tables, pricing and “who should pick which” sections attract people close to a decision. A calculator or checker is the clearest case of content an AI summary can’t replace (the free tool marketing tactic covers building one). And if you publish numbers nobody else has, AI answers quote you, and some readers click through to check the source.
To decide the split, take a SaaS blog with 200 posts. Export 16 months of Search Console data, tag each URL by the query type it mainly serves, and look at the click trend for each type. If definition posts lost half their clicks while comparison posts held steady, that is next quarter’s budget split.
Getting quoted inside the AI answer
Google says there is nothing special to do. Its documentation states there are “no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode”, and that you don’t need new machine-readable files, AI text files or markup. It also explains that both features may use “query fan-out”, running several related searches across subtopics. A page can therefore be cited for a sub-question it answers well even if it doesn’t rank for the main query.
Some habits follow from that:
- Lead each section with the answer: a heading phrased as the question, one or two sentences that answer it, then the detail.
- Cover the sub-questions. If someone asks “should I use a lifetime or daily budget”, the fan-out likely includes minimums, pacing and when each suits. Answer those on the page.
- Put prices, limits, specs and dates in tables, where people and machines both read them more easily than in prose.
- Keep facts current and consistent. Out-of-date pricing on one page and new pricing on another is a common reason assistants describe a product wrongly.
- Write titles and descriptions for the click you still get. When the AI answer covers the basics, your snippet has to promise what the summary lacks, like the template, the calculator or the comparison. A meta tag generator lets you check length and preview before you publish.
Getting assistants such as ChatGPT and Perplexity to mention your brand is a related but separate job, with its own step-by-step in the AI search visibility tactic.
To keep certain content out of these features, Google points to the existing controls: nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex. Be careful. The same controls limit how your page appears in normal results too.
Measuring AI traffic
Most teams get confused here, because AI traffic lands in different places depending on where it came from.
Google’s own AI features
AI Overviews and AI Mode count as Google organic search. Google’s documentation says sites appearing in these features are reported in the Search Console Performance report, within the “Web” search type, and there is no filter to separate them there.
Since June 2026, Search Console also has Generative AI performance reports for Search and Discover. Google says they show impressions in generative AI features, broken down by page, country, device and date. They don’t show clicks, queries or position. A note on Google’s announcement says the reports reached all websites worldwide as of 31 August 2026. Use them to see which pages appear in AI features, then compare those pages’ clicks in the main Performance report.
ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and other assistants
GA4’s default channel group now includes an AI Assistant channel. Google describes it as traffic from sources like ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Copilot or Grok, and notes that it excludes Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode. Check whether it appears in your property’s Traffic acquisition report. Some assistant visits arrive without a referrer and show as Direct, so read the channel as a floor; the real figure is higher.
Where each answer lives
| Question | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Are my pages shown in AI Overviews or AI Mode? | Search Console, Generative AI report (impressions) |
| Are those pages still getting clicks? | Search Console, Performance report, Web, filtered by page |
| How much traffic comes from chat assistants? | GA4, AI Assistant channel |
| Does that traffic convert? | GA4, key events by session default channel group |
| Are buyers finding us via AI without clicking? | A “How did you hear about us?” field on sign-up and demo forms |
For B2B, the last row tells you the most. Many people read an AI answer, remember the name and search for you later, which shows up as branded search or direct traffic. Asking them is the only way to see that path.
A first audit, in order
| Step | Where | What you are looking for |
|---|---|---|
| Export 16 months by page and query; tag the top 100 pages by query type | Search Console | A baseline per query type |
| Compare click trends by type | Your export | Types losing clicks while impressions hold: the pages most exposed to AI answers |
| Pick five pages to deepen and five thin pages to merge | Your content list | Room for examples, edge cases, tables and screenshots |
| Plan one asset a summary can’t replace | Roadmap | A comparison page, a calculator or a template |
| List the pages that appear in AI features | Search Console, Generative AI report | Which pages to watch for click loss |
| Add the AI Assistant channel to the weekly acquisition report, next to organic search | GA4 | Assistant traffic over time |
| Add a free-text “How did you hear about us?” field to your highest-intent form | Sign-up or demo form | Buyers who met you in an AI answer first |
Questions people ask
Do AI Overviews reduce organic traffic?
For many informational searches, yes. Pew Research Center found that people clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, against 15% when it did not. Ahrefs' 2026 analysis found a 58% lower average click-through rate for the top-ranking page when an AI Overview was present.
Is there a special optimisation for AI Overviews or AI Mode?
Google says no. Its documentation states there are no additional requirements or special optimisations needed, and that you do not need new machine-readable files or markup. Normal SEO fundamentals still apply.
How do I see AI Overview and AI Mode traffic in Search Console?
Clicks and impressions from these features are counted in the Performance report under the Web search type. Since 2026 there is also a Generative AI performance report that shows impressions in AI features by page, country, device and date, but not clicks.
Does GA4 track traffic from ChatGPT and other assistants?
GA4's default channel group now includes an AI Assistant channel for visits from sources such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, DeepSeek and Grok. It excludes Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, which still show up as organic search.
Sources
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website
- Google Search Central Blog: Introducing Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console
- Pew Research Center: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results
- Ahrefs: AI Overviews reduce clicks (2026 update)
- Ahrefs: AI Overviews reduce clicks by 34.5%
- Seer Interactive: AIO impact on Google CTR, September 2025 update
- Semrush: AI Overviews study
- Google Analytics Help: Default channel group
