Remember when everyone panicked about featured snippets stealing clicks? That feels quaint now.
Google’s AI Overviews have done something much more fundamental: they’ve changed the default behavior of search. For a growing number of queries, Google doesn’t send users to websites at all. It synthesizes an answer from multiple sources and presents it right there at the top of the page. Your content might be one of those sources, but the user may never click through.
I’ve been tracking this closely with our clients since AI Overviews started rolling out more broadly. Here’s what I’ve actually seen in the data, not theory real numbers from real accounts.
Informational queries got hit hardest. Pages that ranked well for “what is” and “how to” queries saw CTR drops between 15-40%. That’s not a typo. A healthcare client had a page ranking #2 for a high-volume informational keyword. The page used to get about 2,200 clicks per month. After AI Overviews started appearing for that query, clicks dropped to around 1,400. The ranking didn’t change. The impressions didn’t change. People just stopped clicking because Google answered the question for them.
But here’s the nuance everyone misses: commercial and transactional queries were barely affected. People searching for “best CRM for small agencies” or “SEO audit services in India” still click through to websites. They want to evaluate options, read reviews, and compare pricing. AI Overviews can provide a summary, but the buying decision requires more depth.
This is why the shift toward BOFU (bottom-of-funnel) content matters so much right now. If most of your blog traffic came from informational queries, you’re going to feel the squeeze. But if your content strategy is built around high-intent, decision-stage topics, the impact is much smaller.
Here’s what’s actually working for our clients in 2026:
Being cited in AI Overviews rather than competing against them. If Google is going to summarize information from multiple sources, you want to be one of those sources. We’ve found that pages with clear, factual statements, proper schema markup, and strong E-E-A-T signals are more likely to be cited. It doesn’t drive the same click volume as a #1 ranking, but it builds brand visibility in a way that compounds over time.
Shifting content strategy toward intent that AI Overviews can’t fully satisfy. Product comparisons, case studies, pricing pages, ROI calculators, detailed process explainers these are topics where a quick AI summary isn’t enough. Users need depth, and they’ll click through to get it.
Doubling down on brand search. Here’s something interesting: AI Overviews have actually increased the value of branded search. When someone sees your brand mentioned in an AI Overview and then searches for you by name, that’s a high-quality visit. We’ve seen branded search volumes increase for several clients whose content gets cited in AI Overviews, even as non-branded CTR dropped.
Investing in video and visual content. AI Overviews can’t replicate a video walkthrough of your service or an interactive tool on your website. Pages with rich media tend to hold their CTR better because users recognize there’s value beyond what the text summary can provide.
Here’s what I’d stop doing:
Stop chasing high-volume informational keywords for the sake of traffic numbers. If Google can answer the query in 3 sentences, your 2,000-word blog post isn’t going to get the clicks it used to. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create that content; it still builds topical authority but doesn’t measure its success by traffic alone.
Stop freaking out about CTR drops. I’ve seen teams panic and make drastic changes because their average CTR dropped. Look at the query-level data. If your informational pages lost clicks but your commercial pages held steady, your revenue is probably fine.
The bottom line: AI Overviews didn’t kill SEO. They changed which types of content drive clicks and which types of content drive visibility. The smart move is to optimize for both because in 2026, brand visibility and direct traffic are both currencies worth having.
