Do AI Overviews Reduce Organic Clicks?

Google AI Overviews reduce organic click-through rates significantly and measurably. A December 2025 analysis by Ahrefs of 300,000 keywords found that AI Overview presence correlates with a 58% lower average CTR for the top-ranking page. A separate randomized field experiment by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the Indian School of Business found a 38% reduction in outbound organic clicks on queries where AI Overviews appeared. The direction of the evidence is consistent: when Google answers a query inside the SERP, fewer users click through to any website.

What Are AI Overviews?

AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of Google search results, synthesizing information from multiple web sources to answer a query directly on the results page – without requiring the user to click through to any external website.

Google began rolling AI Overviews out broadly in the United States in May 2024 and has since expanded the feature to additional countries and languages. The summaries appear most frequently on informational queries: "what is," "how does," "why does," and similar question-format searches. They appear far less often on branded or transactional queries.

Zero-click search is any search session where the user reads the results page and leaves without visiting an external website – a behavior that has grown steadily as Google has added more on-SERP features including Featured Snippets, Local Packs, and now AI Overviews.

The arrival of AI Overviews accelerated a trend that predated them. Featured Snippets, Knowledge Panels, and Local Packs all reduced click-through rates for the organic listings below them. AI Overviews are the most aggressive version of this pattern yet, because they occupy significantly more visual real estate and synthesize a more complete answer than any previous SERP feature.

What the Data Actually Shows

The click-loss question has now been studied from multiple angles. The findings converge.

The Ahrefs Position-One Study

Ahrefs selected 300,000 keywords from its Keywords Explorer database: 150,000 with AI Overviews present and 150,000 informational-intent keywords without them. Using aggregated Google Search Console data, the team compared average desktop CTR across December 2023 (pre-AI Overviews) and December 2025.

The numbers are stark. In December 2023, position-one CTR for informational keywords averaged 0.076. By December 2025, that figure had dropped to 0.039 – a decline attributable to broader search behavior changes. For keywords where an AI Overview appeared, position-one CTR fell from 0.073 to 0.016. After accounting for the general CTR decline, Ahrefs calculated that AI Overview presence specifically accounts for a 58% reduction in clicks that would otherwise have gone to the top-ranking page.

Corroborating data from other research firms is consistent: Seer Interactive reported CTR drops between 49.4% and 65.2%; Authoritas found a 47.5% reduction; Kevin Indig reported declines above 50%. The Daily Mail, operating at scale, reported 80–90% lower CTR on affected queries.

The Carnegie Mellon and Indian School of Business Randomized Experiment

The Ahrefs study is correlational. The Carnegie Mellon and Indian School of Business paper is causal.

Researchers Saharsh Agarwal and Ananya Sen built a Chrome extension that randomly assigned 1,065 U.S. participants to one of three conditions. The control group saw Google normally. A second group had AI Overviews hidden in real time. A third group was redirected to Google's AI Mode. The study ran for two weeks per participant between January and February 2026.

When AI Overviews were removed, outbound clicks per search rose from 0.38 to 0.61 – a 38% increase, meaning AI Overviews suppressed 38% of clicks on queries where they triggered. Zero-click sessions rose from 54% to 72% when AI Overviews were present. Effects were largest when the AI Overview appeared at the top of the page, which occurred 85% of the time. Removing top-position AI Overviews nearly doubled outbound clicks; lower-positioned summaries had no measurable effect.

The researchers concluded that AI Overviews "divert traffic away from publishers without delivering measurable improvements in user experience." Post-study satisfaction scores were nearly identical whether participants saw AI Overviews or not.

The Amsive Data on Query Type

An analysis by performance agency Amsive of 700,000 keywords across ten websites and five industries added granularity. Average CTR dropped 15.49% across all keyword types, but the loss was not evenly distributed.

Non-branded informational queries took the hardest hit. Keywords outside the top three positions saw a 27.04% CTR drop. Branded keywords, by contrast, told a different story: AI Overviews triggered on only 4.79% of branded queries. When they did trigger on branded terms, CTR increased by 18.68%, likely because user intent is stronger and the AI Overview reinforces brand recognition rather than replacing the click.

Factor	Keywords with AI Overviews	Keywords without AI Overviews
Avg. position-one CTR (Dec 2025)	0.016	0.039
Zero-click session rate	72%	54%
CTR change vs. baseline	–58% (Ahrefs) / –38% (Agarwal & Sen)	Baseline
Impact on branded queries	+18.68% CTR boost	N/A
Impact on non-branded, non-top-3	–27.04%	N/A
User satisfaction change	No measurable difference	N/A

Google's Counterargument and Why It Doesn't Hold

Google VP Liz Reid has publicly claimed that AI Overviews produce higher-quality clicks and reduce "bounce clicks." The argument is that users who do click through after seeing an AI Overview are more informed and more likely to engage meaningfully with the destination page.

That claim may be true in isolation. A smaller number of higher-intent clicks is not worthless. But the Agarwal and Sen experiment tested the user-benefit side directly and found no measurable improvement in search satisfaction, information quality perception, or ease of finding information when AI Overviews were present versus absent. Google is claiming a user experience benefit that a controlled experiment failed to detect.

For publishers and marketing managers, the practical issue is volume. A 38–58% reduction in clicks is not offset by a modest improvement in engagement rate for the clicks that remain. The top-of-funnel traffic that once drove brand awareness, newsletter signups, and early-stage SaaS trials is simply not arriving. If ChatGPT recommends your competitor and Google's AI Overview cites their content, your rankings are becoming progressively less relevant to your actual revenue.

Which Queries Are Most Affected?

Not all traffic is equally at risk. Understanding the pattern helps you prioritize where to act.

Informational queries are the highest-risk category. These are queries with 99%+ overlap with AI Overview triggers – "what is," "how to," "why does," "difference between." The 58% CTR drop in the Ahrefs study was measured specifically on informational-intent keywords. For SaaS companies, local service businesses, and ecommerce brands that publish educational content to build awareness, this is where the damage is concentrated.

Non-branded, non-top-3 rankings compound the problem. If you rank outside position three on a query that triggers an AI Overview, your CTR loss can exceed 27%. The AI Overview pushes organic results down the page and the compounding effect is severe.

Branded queries behave differently. AI Overviews rarely appear for brand-name searches. When they do, they tend to reinforce the click rather than replace it. This is not a solution to the informational traffic problem, but it does mean branded content and brand authority remain worth investing in.

Transactional and commercial investigation queries show smaller effects. Users searching to buy, compare pricing, or evaluate vendors are more likely to click through regardless of what appears above the organic listings.

The Strategic Response: From Ranking to Citation

Accepting that AI Overviews reduce clicks is not the same as accepting that your traffic must decline. The brands seeing the worst outcomes are those that ranked well in classic search but built no position inside AI-generated answers. The brands holding their ground and in some cases growing – are those cited within the AI Overview itself.

Being cited inside an AI Overview changes your position from "organic result below the summary" to "source the summary is built from." Those citations carry a disproportionate share of the clicks that do occur. Structured content that AI systems can extract cleanly – definition blocks, named frameworks, direct answers to specific questions – gets cited far more reliably than dense prose.

The mechanics of ranking in Google AI Overviews differ from classic SEO in one key respect: the signal is extractability, not just authority. Google's AI system needs to be able to lift a self-contained answer from your page and include it in a summary. Pages that bury their main point in the third paragraph, use passive constructions, or require the reader to have read prior sections are systematically disadvantaged.

Content that demonstrates strong E-E-A-T signals (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) earns AI citations more consistently, since these are the same quality signals Google uses to assess whether a source is worth summarizing. Consistent E-E-A-T signals across your content help Google identify your brand as a trustworthy source to draw from in generated answers.

AuthorityStack.ai tracks how often and in what context AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity cite your brand, so you can see exactly which content earns citations and which competitors are getting cited instead of you. Teams that have used this approach – auditing citation gaps, restructuring content for extractability, and building topical clusters – have seen AI citation rates improve by 40% within 90 days.

What This Means for AI Mode

The Carnegie Mellon and Indian School of Business study included a third condition: Google's AI Mode, which redirects all searches to a fully generative interface rather than a traditional results page with an AI Overview at the top.

AI Mode performed worse for publishers than even standard AI Overviews. Participants in the AI Mode group showed lower outbound click rates, higher zero-click rates, and lower satisfaction scores at the end of the study period. The researchers treated these results as exploratory given higher attrition in that group, but the directional signal is clear.

If AI Mode expands and Google is testing it aggressively – the click environment for organic publishers becomes worse, not better. Zero-click rates that currently sit at 72% for AI Overview queries could climb further. The implication is not to optimize less for organic search, but to ensure your brand earns citations inside whatever generative layer Google places above its organic results. Consistent AI Overview citation tracking is the only reliable way to know whether your content is appearing in that layer at all.

Where This Is Heading

The pattern established by AI Overviews is accelerating, not stabilizing. Three developments are worth watching.

AI Mode expansion. Google is actively testing full AI Mode deployment beyond its current limited rollout. When a user enters AI Mode, every query receives a generated answer first. The CTR data from the Carnegie Mellon and Indian School of Business study suggests this environment will be even more damaging for organic publishers than standard AI Overview deployment.

Cited sources as the new position one. As zero-click rates rise, being a cited source inside a generated answer becomes more valuable than ranking first in the list below it. The brands winning in this environment are those actively optimizing content structure for AI extraction, not just keyword placement.

Multi-platform AI visibility. Google AI Overviews are one channel. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini each have their own citation patterns and content preferences. A brand absent from Google's AI summary but cited across four other AI platforms maintains meaningful visibility even as Google's organic traffic erodes. Tracking citation share across platforms – not just Google rankings – is the emerging discipline.

FAQ

How Much Do AI Overviews Reduce Organic Clicks?

Ahrefs found a 58% reduction in position-one CTR for keywords with AI Overviews present, based on 300,000 keywords analyzed in December 2025. A randomized field experiment by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the Indian School of Business measured a 38% causal reduction in outbound clicks on queries where AI Overviews triggered.

Which Types of Queries Are Most Affected by AI Overviews?

Informational, non-branded queries show the steepest CTR drops. Queries with "what is," "how to," and "why does" formats overlap with AI Overview triggers at a rate above 99%. Branded queries are less affected and can see a CTR increase when an AI Overview appears, because the summary reinforces user intent rather than replacing the click.

Does Google's Claim That AI Overviews Improve Click Quality Hold Up?

Independent data does not support it. The Carnegie Mellon and Indian School of Business randomized experiment measured user satisfaction, information quality perception, and ease of finding information and found no measurable difference whether participants saw AI Overviews or not. The "higher quality clicks" framing may be technically accurate in a narrow sense, but a 38–58% volume reduction is not offset by marginal improvements in engagement rate.

Can You Still Get Traffic From Queries Where an AI Overview Appears?

Yes. Brands cited as sources inside an AI Overview receive a disproportionate share of the clicks that do occur. The strategic shift is from optimizing to rank below the AI Overview to optimizing to be cited within it. Structured content – definition blocks, direct answers, named frameworks – earns AI citations more reliably than unstructured prose.

How Does Google AI Mode Compare to AI Overviews for Publishers?

AI Mode performs worse for publishers than standard AI Overviews. In the Carnegie Mellon and Indian School of Business study, participants redirected to AI Mode showed lower outbound click rates, higher zero-click rates, and lower satisfaction scores compared to participants who saw standard AI Overviews. Google is expanding AI Mode testing, making citation-optimized content increasingly important.

What Is the Difference Between an AI Overview and a Featured Snippet?

A Featured Snippet pulls a direct excerpt from a single web page and displays it at the top of search results, with a clear link to the source. An AI Overview synthesizes content from multiple sources into a generated summary that may reference several pages and may not link directly to any of them. AI Overviews occupy more visual space, produce higher zero-click rates, and are harder to "win" through a single page optimization.

How Do You Track Whether Your Content Is Being Cited in AI Overviews?

Google Search Console does not currently provide direct AI Overview citation data. Third-party platforms that monitor AI Overview appearances for specific keywords and track brand mentions across generative AI platforms provide the clearest picture. Without active monitoring, you have no reliable signal on whether your content changes are improving citation rates or whether competitors are gaining ground.

Final Thoughts

The data on AI Overviews and organic clicks is no longer ambiguous. Multiple independent studies, including a randomized controlled experiment, confirm that AI Overviews reduce outbound clicks by 38–58% on the queries where they appear. Zero-click search is not a future scenario – it is the current default for a majority of informational queries.

The productive response is not to retreat from content investment. Topical authority, direct structured answers, and consistent E-E-A-T signals are what earn citations inside AI-generated summaries and citations are where the clicks now go. Brands that treat GEO as a complement to SEO rather than a replacement will hold their ground. Brands that continue optimizing only for classic rankings will find their traffic eroding even as their keyword positions stay intact.

Marketing teams that want to generate content structured the way AI systems prefer to cite can build and scale that output with the AuthorityStack.ai SEO Article Generator – every article is built with brand context, competitive positioning, schema markup, and GEO signals included from the start.