AI Overviews: The End of SEO As We Know It?

AI hasn’t just been the marketing buzzword of the past year or two, it’s perhaps been the buzzword of the century (so far, at least). Email marketing, SEO and paid ads all existed in more primitive forms in the ‘90s, having gradually evolved ever since – but generative AI seemingly burst onto the scene out of nowhere, and has had a huge impact on the way marketing works.

It’s rare for something to come along and shake up an industry in the way that generative AI has. And it’s not just changed marketing – it’s changed the way so many industries work. It’s even changed the way we go about our daily lives and how we access the information we need.

That brings us nicely onto the topic of AI overviews, which have crept into not only Google, but Bing and a number of other search engines too. The dramatic rise of AI-enabled search results has led many to question the future of SEO: will it remain a key pillar of digital marketing like it has been for 20-plus years, or will it become irrelevant?

That’s the question we’re aiming to answer right here. But before we get to that, we’ll first run through everything you need to know about AI overviews, explaining what they are, how they work and why they’re such a big deal.

What are AI overviews?

The look and feel of Google’s SERPs (that’s shorthand for search engine results pages) hasn’t changed a great deal since the late ‘90s. Or hadn’t, until generative AI became a thing.

You’d input a query and you’d receive a list of 10 relevant web pages in return, with the odd advert or featured snippet sprinkled into the mix every so often.

Now that’s changed. Ask Google a question today and the first thing you see might not be a web page at all, but an AI-generated response that answers your question based on a number of different sources, all of which are displayed opposite. That’s an AI overview.

What’s all the fuss about?

At first glance, it might be hard to tell what all the fuss is about. Surely this is little more than a development of the featured snippets we saw previously, only this time incorporating generative AI tech?

Well, kind of. The principle is the same – Google’s aim is to answer users’ questions as quickly and clearly as possible. But the repercussions for brands are a whole lot more significant.

While featured snippets presented brands with an additional opportunity to rank, placing their words front and centre on the SERPs, AI overviews merely cite websites as sources – they don’t quote them word-for-word. The emphasis is very much on the AI response, not the original source of information, which makes it harder for brands to get noticed.

Plus, AI overviews take up a lot more room on the page than most featured snippets (like FAQs) ever did. So unless you’re able to get your site featured as a source within the AI overview, you’re less likely to receive clicks than you were before – even if you ranked number one on the traditional SERP layout.

AI overviews have generated more than their fair share of controversy too, with the initial rollout of the feature delivering (often hilarious) wrong answers that suggested users should eat glue and rocks. Even though Google has ironed out most of the kinks by now, the AI summary doesn’t always get things right.

Couple all of this to the fact that AI overviews are rapidly becoming more and more prevalent across a wide range of different search topics and industries, and it’s easy to see why so many marketers (and brands) are worried about the impact they might have.

According to a recent study from Advanced Web Ranking, 42.51% of all Google search results now feature AI overviews at the very top of the page. It’s clear that AI overviews are here to stay, despite the initial controversy surrounding them.

How to optimise for Google’s AI overviews

If you’ve paid attention to the way Google’s SERPs work now, you might have noticed that the websites cited as sources within AI overviews aren’t always within the top five (or even top 10) results for that query. Logically, you’d assume that the AI model would merely summarise the top two or three results, but it doesn’t – it can cite pages and articles from across the internet, even if they don’t appear on page one of the SERPs.

This begs the question: how the hell do you get your site to appear in an AI overview?

As usual with all things Google, the way its AI model works is shrouded in mystery. Nobody really knows how it determines which sites to draw information from, but Google’s advice on the subject is simple: “There is nothing special for creators to do to be considered [to appear in AI overviews] other than to follow our regular guidance for appearing in search, as covered in Google Search Essentials.”

That means making sure your pages are easily indexable and your site is logically laid-out, targeting all the right keywords, creating high-quality original content that meets E-E-A-T guidelines, optimising your internal linking and on-page SEO… all pretty familiar stuff.

So, do AI overviews mean the end of SEO is nigh?

At this point, not at all. As you probably gathered from the previous paragraph, Google’s advice on how to appear within AI overviews remains to stick to the same core SEO principles that also apply when you’re aiming to rank number one in the SERPs or appear in a featured snippet. They don’t massively impact eCommerce brands yet either, as they rarely show up for queries with a purchase intent – meaning prominent search rankings and Google Shopping ads remain highly effective.

Although it’s easy to get disheartened by the rise of AI overviews – because they can make it harder for brands to get noticed and generate traffic through the SERPs – it’s important to view them as an opportunity. It’s somewhere else you can rank. Just think: if you create a piece of content so good that it appears not only in the SERPs but in the AI overview and a featured snippet, you’ll be winning.

If anything, the rise of AI-enabled search only reinforces the direction SEO and content marketing was heading in already. Quality, originality, trustworthiness and authority are absolutely critical if you want your brand to succeed in 2025, and technical SEO remains a must-have, not a nice-to-have.

Yes, SEO is changing. But is it becoming less important? Quite the opposite.