Will Google’s AI Overviews Hurt Your Organic Traffic? It Depends.
This article was originally published here.
Search marketers are sweating. Again.
Google’s rollout of AI Overviews (AIOs) is shaking up the SERPs.
Since March 2025:
No surprise: brands are nervous. If the answer lives on the SERP, why would anyone click through?
But the full story is more nuanced.
What’s Actually Happening in the SERPs?
Websites featured in AI Overviews often experience more significant fluctuations in ranking compared to standard organic search results. According to recent data from industry reports, AI-driven SERP rankings can shift by up to 30% in a single week, especially when content gets stale or lacks credibility.
Search is shifting fast. Our internal GEO docs flag three big patterns showing up already:
But let’s not panic. Google shaking up the results page isn’t new. Remember snippets? Voice answers? This is just the latest wave.
Here are a few examples leading up to AI Overviews:
Featured snippets
Featured snippets first appeared on Google SERPs in 2014. Snippets take information from authoritative sites and present them directly on the SERP. This includes a variety of formats including lists, tables, YouTube thumbnails, product carousels, and paragraphs:
At the time of their introduction they were one of the first disruptions to the “above-the-fold” section, the part of the SERP below the search bar but preceding Position 1 in the actual organic rankings. Following their launch, Featured Snippets saw aggressive growth across Google search, reaching 12% of total search queries in 2021.
Voice search
Voice search wasn’t a SERP feature, but the panic was similar. When voice search took off, the SEO world worried. Why? Because 80% of voice answers came from the top 3 organic results, and 60% of those were pulled from Featured Snippets.
It was a different interface, but the same concern: Fewer clicks. More zero-click answers. Shifting visibility.
The goal of zero-click SERP elements
Why do Overviews exist in the first place? Google’s goal with things like AIO and Featured Snippets is simple: deliver a clear, targeted answer right on the SERP. That’s why these features mostly show up for a specific kind of search — the kind where users want quick info, not a deep dive.
Where is Overviews’ impact the most pronounced?
The latest research available finds that AIO is most commonly found on medical, financial, and general how-to queries.
What we at BMG360 along with various analysts in the SEO space have noticed is that the majority of topics affected by AIO are indeed informational in nature. That is to say, longer searches that use natural sentence structure and are often looking for answers to a specific question or how-to instructions.
For the time being more commercial and transactional searches, like people searching for specific products or services, are less affected, though this can obviously change as Google continues to iterate on AIO and roll it out to more SERPs.
Putting AIO impact in perspective
Yes, AIO is hitting click-throughs. Hard. BrightEdge’s May 2025 report shows a 30% drop in average CTR, and all signs point to the Q1 AIO rollout as the main culprit.
But don’t just read the headline. There’s nuance here. Not all traffic is created equal, and not every drop in clicks hits your bottom line the same way.
Zero-click historical perspective
We’ve been here before. Google’s been chasing the “zero-click” dream for over a decade. Featured Snippets were the first big move, and yes, they shifted click patterns.
Organic didn’t die then, and it won’t now.
Overviews might dent CTRs for traditional rankings today, but it’s not necessarily permanent. And if your content earns citations inside AIOs, you could even grow top-of-funnel traffic.
Overviews and your business goals
If you're worried about AIO, zoom out. While the CTR impact of Overviews is real and well documented right now, what really matters is what’s happening further down your funnel. Ask yourself:
Chances are, if your traffic is converting on bottom-funnel pages (like pricing or service details), Overviews haven’t hurt you much, because those high-intent searches aren’t the ones AIO is disrupting.
Informational traffic may dip. But intent-rich traffic will still be strong.
Overviews and Google’s business goals
Google isn’t killing Organic. It can’t. Overviews are designed to serve instant answers, and yes, that’s cutting into clicks. But there’s no sign that Google plans to replace Organic search with AI responses entirely.
Why? Two big reasons:
1. Public Trust - The value of search lies in credible, useful results. Strip that away, and users leave.
Google has a vested interest in maintaining the quality and user experience of standard Organic search. There’s an element of the public good to that – assertions have been made that Google search should be a public utility and the fidelity of organic search results is important enough that – but also a strong commercial incentive:
2. Profit Motive - Google Ads depend on search volume. No organic = fewer eyeballs = less ad revenue.
Google makes much of its revenue from Google Ads. This is a marketplace where vendors bid to appear in results for relevant topics or individual keywords.
Google Ads, as an advertising platform, derives its value from the amount of eyeballs going to Google every day. Basically, a keyword group is worth bidding on because the average amount of people searching those keywords is quantifiable
Google’s dominance in share of searcher eyeballs, 79% as of March 2025, exists in part because of the quality of its organic search results, implementing algorithms to sort and rank sites based on their relevance to the searcher and providing more accurate organic search results than other existing search engines.
So while the format may shift, Organic isn’t going anywhere.
New SERP element rollouts and user engagement
SERP features evolve, and Overviews will too. Google doesn’t launch and leave. Snippets, carousels, panels — all of them got tweaked over time based on performance and user feedback.
Overviews are no different. If they hurt the user experience or tank trusted sites, they’ll get adjusted. Google has 5 trillion reasons a year (i.e. searches) to keep Organic healthy — and Ads profitable.
Search isn’t going static, it’s just expanding across Google, Gemini, ChatGPT, even Bing. Your job is to keep showing up where people look.
So, what we're all really here for: How to optimize for AI Overviews
There are potential SEO advantages to Overviews to keep in mind as well. Overviews contain links and brand mentions to the sites it uses to generate its responses. These are a compelling new way to potentially drive more clicks from Google, since they occupy prime real estate at the top of the SERP.
Want to win with Overviews? Build for AI, not just humans. Overviews are evolving fast, but there’s already a clear pattern in what they prefer. Based on our GEO playbooks at BMG360, here’s what to focus on:
Want to know how your site stacks up in the age of AI search?
We built an AI Visibility Audit to measure how prepared your site is for AI-driven search. It scores your content across 20 AI-readiness factors, from content depth and E-E-A-T signals to schema, snippet structure, and crawlability.
If you want to get ahead of these changes, reach out to Mark Kutowy to see if it’s the right fit for your team, or contact us here.
A little bit more about the author
This article was written by Mark Aspillera , Senior SEO Strategist at BMG360. Part SEO strategist, part client whisperer, Mark leads search strategy and client services for a tight roster of high-end national and international brands. From setting the big-picture SEO roadmap to running the day-to-day, he makes sure every tactic maps back to what actually moves the needle. If he's not deep in a rank report or a strategy doc, he's probably on a client call making complex things sound simple.
Mark also just published a new, complete Guide to Keyword Research in 2025. Get it below.
[Download the full guide: How to Do SEO Keyword Research — Step-by-Step for 2025]