What are Google AI Overviews (AIOs) and how they affect your website traffic.

What are Google AIOs (AI Overviews)?

AI Overviews are machine generated answers that Google displays directly at the top in the search results pages. They summarise content from multiple websites using Large Language Models (LLMs), similar to ChatGPT. This is the new face or look of Google search. You will often see them appear as:

• Key takeaways
• Mini guides
•  Direct answers (above the traditional 10 “blue links”)

“AI Overviews aggregate data to give fast answers. SERP results like FAQs and organic listings are pushed further down the page.” – [Zak Averre, Anicca Digital]​

What does this mean for your organic website traffic?

According to a  well published 2024 study by Rand Fishkin at Sparktoro & Datos, only 37.4% of Google searches in the US now result in a click to the open web. Here in the Ireland and Europe, it’s even lower at 36% for us.

That means:

Many users never leave the search page at all because they get the answer on the Google results page

Your organic click through rate (CTR) to your website will drop, even if impressions or views go up

Snippets, video carousels and AIOs and Ads are all competing for attention above your website link.

“Impressions are up, but clicks are down. Users are getting their answers from AIOs.” – [Seer Interactive]​ For the most part Impressions is a vanity metric anyway. It just means that your link turned up somewhere on the first 10 pages of results.

How does this affect professional services firms in Ireland?

For construction, legal and financial firms: Your content may be summarised by Google without a visitor going to your website You may miss out on leads and engagement that would previously have come from a click. Local SEO, branded searches and your own human expertise now matter more than ever, so do add some opinion and original content.
In the first three months of 2026 over 1.5 billion monthly users started seeing AI Overviews.  It does mean that people are getting answers without clicking through to the website that created the answer. 58% of users do not click through to a website. These overviews appear in over 50% of query results.

Note and your homework for today

We used to say that you could hide a dead body on page 2 of Google, but now you could say the same about hiding a dead body in the lower half of page 1 of Google. So, being on page 1 is no longer a guarantee of success. Now you need to be in the top 3 or 4 organic results. Position 1 will get just under 30% of organic traffic and only 30% of search queries will end up in the organic results. If you do the maths, from 1000 searches for a term, 300 people get to organic results and at best 30% or 90 people will click on position 1 with about 45 clicking on position 2 or about 30 for position 3. Where are you ranking for your target key terms? Do you know? It is time you checked, so talk to your Marketing Team now. Otherwise, you could be investing your budget and getting poor results. Where do you plan to get your leads in 2026?

What should you do now?

We’re helping clients adapt in a few smart ways:

1. Focus on E-E-A-T

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) content performs better than AI generated fluff.

Human written ‘good’ content that adds some value keeps people on the page 93% longer than AI content. Visitors are 3.6x more likely to engage with expert content​. You know this from your own browsing. You do the exact same thing. Does your own content all look like it would hold your attention as a reader?

2. Target long tail terms & branded search

Instead of basic terms like “accountant Dublin”, aim for:

“Best tax-saving tips for construction firms Ireland”

“[Your Firm] reviews” or “[Your Name] financial planner Donnybrook”

In AI Mode or ChatGPT a search query is now long tail, as in it contains a multiple of words, especially in voice activated search.

3. Diversify your content types

AIOs don’t summarise videos or interactive tools as easily, so maybe do some videos for your YouTube channel

Add explainer videos, calculators, and FAQs to your site – something with added value for visitors that they will not get elsewhere

4. Update and merge old content

Combine thin or light posts with very little content in in-depth resources. Light pages do not impress Google or the readers. And a short answer to a query will definitely be given in AIOs simpoly to answer the query quickly.

Focus on uniqueness, not volume. No copy and pasting. Don’t give answers that you got somewhere else if you can avoid it. Or at least add some of your own ideas or opinions to make it different or ideally better.

5. Use AI as a tool, not a crutch

Use AI to speed up your research, create summaries and get content ideas or do initial basic content creation for you to save time.

But make sure your final output is human, helpful and insightful – add value for any readers. Anything you get from AI is not original. This is an opportunity for you to show readers that you have opinions, expertise and are worth engaging.

Real world impact

Search Platform Shift (EU/UK, 2025)

This chart from Datos and SparkToro shows a critical, but subtle, shift. Google’s dominant search share in the EU/UK has slightly eroded, dropping from 80.50% to 78.47% over 2025. This is significant because it coincides with the rollout of AI Overviews. Crucially, the alternative platforms gaining share , Amazon and ChatGPT, are transactional and conversational, respectively. This data suggests that when users seek immediate AI-generated syntheses (AIOs) or direct product searches, they are increasingly bypassed Google’s traditional indexing model. For businesses, this proves that being indexed by Google is no longer the sole path to visibility. If Google satisfies the user’s query with an AIO, users may never click through, reducing traffic even if you rank #1. To counter this, your content must aim to be cited within the AIO as the primary, authoritative source, effectively earning a “click lifeline” in this new zero-click landscape. Image Source: Datos & SparkToro (2025 Data).

Share of Search Treemap (Q4 2025)

This Treemap graphic provides a definitive snapshot of search distribution, confirming the “squeezing” of the open web identified by SparkToro and Datos. In Q4 2025, Google still commands 78.5% of total searches/chats. However, this “not-to-scale” representation masks a complex reality: while Google controls the high-volume portal, it is increasingly keeping users inside that portal with features like AI Overviews. The substantial blocks for ChatGPT (3.68%) and YouTube (2.87%) represent queries that are moving away from traditional text indexing toward conversational AI and direct video intent. The remainder of the 21 sites, including critical business sectors, are squeezed into minuscule shares. This treemap illustrates the “AIO Tax” effect: even if you are one of the ‘Major Sites’ visible here, your share is under pressure from Google’s internal AI synthesis. For professional services in Dublin or Donegal, visibility depends not just on occupying a search slot, but on being recognized as the definitive trust signal by the AI generating the response. Image Source: Datos & SparkToro (Q4 2025 Data).

15 Sites Visited by 20%+ Desktop Devices in 2025

This bar chart highlights the incredible stickiness and repeat visitation of a select few mega-platforms. In 2025, 15 of the top 41 sites were visited by 20% or more of all EU/UK desktop devices monthly. What is alarming for standard business websites is the massive traffic concentration at the top: Google (90%+) and YouTube (80%+). The drop-off after these two is precipitous. This concentration is a direct multiplier of the AI Overview challenge. If users are satisfied by an AIO on Google, the #1 visited platform, they never migrate down the long tail to the 21 other sites that standard indexing services target. Furthermore, transactional giants like Amazon (50%+) and conversational disruptors like ChatGPT (close to 50%) are solidifying as distinct search destinations, pulling intent away from Google’s standard indexed links. For any firm relying on organic visibility, this proves you are no longer competing just with direct business rivals; you are competing against the satisfying convenience of AI syntheses on the web’s most visited platforms. Image Source: Datos & SparkToro (2025 Data).

Final word, don’t panic…prepare

AI in search isn’t the end, it’s another evolution. Google has been using AI and trying to surface better results for over a decade through algorithm updates, from Panda to Helpful Content. AIOs are just the next step. And for the user they do make sense. This is good for us all.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Charles Darwin

What stays the same?

Helpful, human content still wins

Strategy matters more than ever – have you got one for the coming year?

SEO is not dead – but the rules have changed. It is smarter now, so it is very different. SEO is in Googles ‘Oxygen Tent’ and Google makes all the rules. SEO still depends on Googles rules. AI and new LLMs are a very small part of search, so we still want to focus on the lions share of the traffic which is at Google. Ignore the hype about ChatGPT search, as it uses Google anyway.

Make sure your website is ready. Run a few tests. Check your current ranking in an Incognito window.

‘SEO is not dead, it is in Googles oxygen tent’

Googles introduction of AI overviews certainly made traditional SEO more challenging, as did the Helpful Content Update. But people will still use Google search and most do. Anyone in the small minority who use Search GPT or any AI search tool will end up getting presented with the best answer to any given query, just like Google. Therefore the aim in SEO to proffer the best answer to any given query still stands. Create great content, present it well, make it as interesting as possible and Google will still rank it and deliver it. So will any AI search tools.
What is changing is the ability to manipulate Google or get pages to rank in the top 10 SERP results on page 1 of Google, which for the most part was a vanity metric anyway. Or was a way to drum up visitor numbers as a metric. Nowadays, you may need to be in the top 3 to turn up in AI overviews. At the end of the day people do not want traffic for traffic sake, so we still need to attract the ‘right’ traffic. And then use the content presented on the resulting page to convert a visitor to a lead or enquiry or buyer.
These evolutions in SEO will see irrelevant backlinks carry less and less value in the eyes of Google. Buying backlinks as a way to fool or manipulate Google is of less value and could even damage credibility, doing exactly the reverse of what was planned.
SEO is not dead, far from it, SEO is alive and well, protected in the ‘Oxygen Tent of Google’. Many good SEOs have felt frustrated by how Google would rank poor pages over good ones. But your time has come, where Google will get better at delivering the best response to any given query with less and less black hat manipulation. ‘SEO is Dead, Long live SEO’. Again ignore the hype about AISEO or GEO etc.

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