AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that Google shows at the top of search results, answering a query directly instead of just listing links.
What changed on the results page:
- Before: a search returned ten links, and the user picked one to click.
- Now: Google generates a written answer at the top, often pulled from several sources, and many users read that and never scroll further.
Example: a shoe retailer cited inside an AI Overview can still get a click, while a retailer ranking sixth organically, below the Overview, may get far less traffic for that same position than they used to.
This is a main reason zero-click search has grown. The answer is often satisfied on the results page itself, so being cited matters as much as being clicked.
