What AI Overviews are
AI Overviews are the answer blocks that Google generates with its Gemini model and shows above the organic results. They summarise the answer to the search and link to the pages they are based on.
Alongside them, Google has launched AI Mode, a conversational search tab available in Spanish. Both change the same rule: the user reads an answer before seeing the ten blue links.
Interest keeps growing: searches for “ai overviews” in Spain went from around 30 a month at the end of 2025 to more than 600 in October 2026, according to SE Ranking.
What changes for a brand
When an AI Overview appears, some users get the answer without clicking. On informational searches (“what is”, “how to”) the impact on traffic is bigger; on purchase searches, the user still needs to go to a shop.
But there is also an opportunity: being cited in the summary gives you visibility at the very top of the page, even above the first result. And a user who clicks through from a citation usually arrives with their question already half answered.
How Google chooses its sources
Google hasn't published a manual for appearing in AI Overviews, and its documentation says no special optimisation is needed: the same SEO best practices apply. What we see in practice is consistent with that.
- The page has to be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet in the results.
- The pages cited are usually ones that already rank well for the search or for related searches.
- Specific passages get cited: definitions, steps, lists and short answers.
- Reliability matters: clear authorship, real experience and data that can be checked.
How to increase your chances of being cited
Answer in the first paragraph. If the page is about what ROAS is, the definition has to be at the top, in one or two clear sentences. That is the passage the AI can extract.
Structure the content with headings that are questions or specific topics, lists when there are steps or criteria, and a FAQ section at the end. Cover the neighbouring questions too: someone searching “what is ROAS” also wants to know how to calculate it and what ROAS is profitable.
Bring what others don't have: your own data, client examples and the opinion of someone who signs with their name and job title. And don't forget the technical side: structured data, good speed and content that can be read without relying on JavaScript.
How to measure it
Search Console doesn't yet clearly separate the traffic that comes from AI Overviews, so you need to combine sources. SEO tools such as SE Ranking already record which searches show an AI Overview and whether your domain is cited.
My advice is to pick a panel of 30 to 50 key searches for the business, check every month how many you are cited in and which competitors appear, and cross-reference that with the clicks and sales of those pages.
Frequently asked questions
Can I ask Google to cite me in AI Overviews?
No. Google chooses its sources automatically. What you can do is make sure your page is indexable, relevant and easy to cite.
Do AI Overviews take traffic away?
On informational searches they can reduce clicks, because the user gets the answer in the summary. On purchase searches the effect is smaller, and being cited gives you visibility at the very top of the page.
Can I stop Google from using my site in AI Overviews?
You can limit it with snippet directives such as nosnippet, but that also affects how the page appears in regular results. For most ecommerce sites it isn't worth it.
We’ll tell you what we would do in your case, no strings attached. A real person from the team replies.
Founder and Chairman of Webimpacto. He drives the adoption of AI across the agency and its clients’ projects: GEO, agentic commerce and new channels such as ChatGPT Ads.