Sean Walsh
Sean is a Director at Intelligency heading up our digital marketing and client services operations. Sean has 15+ years experiencing working both in-house and agency with brands including Lloyds, Alstom, Hitachi, Lufthansa, Viaplay, DFDS Seaways and Mercedes-Benz.
If you’re in digital marketing and depending on organic traffic, there’s something
important you need to know: Google’s AI Overviews – the new AI-generated
summaries appearing at the top of many search results – are significantly reducing
the number of clicks to traditional organic listings.
Two major studies, from SEO platform Ahrefs and performance agency Amsive, both
show that AI Overviews are causing measurable drops in click-through rates (CTR),
especially for non-branded, informational searches.
What are AI Overviews – and why are they a problem?
AI Overviews aim to give users a quick, AI-generated answer to their search without
needing to click a link. While that might be helpful to users, it’s bad news for
marketers. These summaries often take the place of organic listings near the top of
the page, pushing other results further down.
Google claims that links cited within AI Overviews actually get more clicks, but the
data from these two independent studies tells a different story.
The numbers tell a clear story
Ahrefs analysed 300,000 keywords and found that when an AI Overview was
present, the average CTR for the top-ranking result dropped by 34.5%. Amsive
looked at 700,000 keywords and found an average CTR drop of 15.5%, with some
cases seeing losses of over 37%.
These are not small changes. They suggest a significant shift in how users interact
with search results – and where their clicks are going.
Informational and non-branded searches are hit hardest
The steepest declines are seen on non-branded, informational queries – the kind of
content many brands create to educate their audience and bring in traffic at the top
of the funnel.
Ahrefs found that 99.2% of keywords triggering AI Overviews had informational
intent. Amsive reported a 20% drop in CTR for non-branded keywords alone. This
means blog posts, how-to guides, and explainer content may now be much less
visible in search.
Even good rankings don’t guarantee traffic
AI Overviews don’t just hurt position one. Amsive’s data showed that listings outside
the top three saw a 27% decline in CTR when an AI Overview was present. So even
well-ranking content is being buried.
Branded searches are less affected – and sometimes benefit
There’s one silver lining. Branded searches – where users include your brand name
are much less likely to trigger an AI Overview. In fact, when they do, they can
actually lead to more clicks. Amsive found that branded queries with an AI Overview
saw an 18.7% boost in CTR, likely because users were already looking for
something specific.
Why marketers should care
These findings challenge Google’s suggestion that AI Overviews improve the quality
of clicks. Even if some links in the AI Overview get clicked, overall traffic appears to
be falling—and most websites that rank well in standard search aren’t being featured
in the AI section at all.
To make things more difficult, Google doesn’t currently break out AI Overview data in
Search Console. That means there’s no clear way to see how these overviews are
impacting your site’s impressions and clicks.
What to do now
If your traffic depends heavily on informational content, you may want to reassess
your strategy. Building brand recognition could become even more important, as
branded searches seem to be more resistant to these changes. It’s also worth
keeping a close eye on keyword-level CTR and adjusting your content and SEO
efforts accordingly.
Search is evolving quickly and if AI Overviews remain as prominent as they are now,
marketers will need to rethink how they earn visibility and clicks.
