Google’s rollout of AI Overviews is arguably essentially the most disruptive change to the search panorama because the introduction of featured snippets.
Our deep-dive evaluation, primarily based on tens of hundreds of key phrases, SERP characteristic overlaps, and industry-specific visibility shifts, reveals how and the place Google is altering the principles—and what SEOs, publishers, and entrepreneurs must do about it.
We analyzed 10M+ key phrases, together with the clickstream information from Datos, a Semrush firm, that set off AI Overviews within the US on desktop to seek out the solutions to those questions:
- What number of queries set off AI Overviews total?
- What type of queries are triggering AI Overviews?
- Which industries have been impacted essentially the most by AI Overviews thus far?
- Are AI Overviews driving extra zero-click searches?
Right here’s what we discovered…
Key Takeaways & Stats
- AI Overviews are on the rise: 13.14% of all queries triggered AI Overviews in March 2025. That’s up from 6.49% in January 2025.
- Informational content material is probably to set off AI Overviews: 88.1% of queries that set off an AI Overview are informational.
- The variety of navigational queries that set off AI Overviews has doubled since January — from 0.74% to 1.43%.
- Within the AI Overview crosshairs—Science, Well being, and Society:
Science (+22.27%), Well being (+20.33%), Folks & Society (+18.83%), and Regulation & Authorities (+15.18%) are the industries experiencing the biggest share progress of AI Overviews—indicating a speedy shift in how customers get solutions in these high-trust, information-dense classes. - Zero-clicks: On common, key phrases that set off AI Overviews present greater zero-click conduct—doubtless as a consequence of their informational nature. However our same-keyword evaluation exhibits zero-click charges really declined barely after AI Overviews had been launched.
The persevering with rise of AI Overviews throughout all sorts of key phrases suggests a shift in direction of extra direct interplay inside search outcomes. The implications for digital entrepreneurs are more and more prevalent: guaranteeing visibility now means optimizing for AI Overviews, a problem that Semrush is uniquely geared up to handle.
Why Ought to You Care about AI Overviews?
AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that seem straight inside Google Search outcomes. Constructed on Google’s generative AI fashions, they purpose to ship an prompt synthesis of related content material pulled from the net. Not like featured snippets, which extract a sentence or two from a single supply, AI Overviews try to consolidate information from a number of sources to current customers with a unified reply.
In brief: they’re turning Google into each a search engine and a solution engine.
Why it issues:
- These summaries seem above natural outcomes
- They scale back the necessity for customers to click on via to web sites
- They could cannibalize site visitors from publishers, ecommerce platforms, associates, and content material entrepreneurs
Methodology of the Research
To grasp the affect and scope of AI Overviews, we analyzed:
- 10M+ key phrases to outline the share of queries triggering AI Overview
- Month-to-month adjustments in AI Overview share by intent sort
- Key phrases that set off AI Overviews
- 10K key phrases to outline key phrase size, key phrases issue ranges and search quantity ranges
- SERP characteristic co-occurrence with AI Overviews
- Area visibility by {industry}
- 200K+ key phrases to outline zero-click charge developments from Jan 2024 to Mar 2025
This allowed us to watch what sorts of content material AI Overviews goal, how that’s altering over time, and what search engine optimization methods are nonetheless efficient.
Zero-Click on Habits: The Greatest search engine optimization KPI Shift [Datos + Semrush data]
Are AI Overviews stealing clicks from the natural search outcomes?
To search out out, Semrush partnered with Datos, a Semrush firm, to research over 200,000 key phrases (every with a search quantity over 100) that both triggered or didn’t set off an AI Overview between January and March 2025. To grasp causality, we additionally tracked a set of key phrases that did not set off AI Overviews in January however did in March. This allowed us to straight examine zero-click conduct earlier than and after an AI Overview was launched for a similar key phrase.
Key phrases that set off AI Overviews do are likely to have greater zero-click charges on common, however this may increasingly mirror their informational intent, not causation.
Though key phrases with AI Overviews have higher-than-average zero-click charges, the pattern is not persistently rising. Between January and March 2025, zero-click conduct amongst these queries really declined barely—difficult the belief that AI Overviews all the time scale back clicks. This factors to a extra advanced interplay between question sort, consumer intent, and the way AI solutions are delivered.
After we analyzed the identical key phrases earlier than and after they began exhibiting AI Overviews, we discovered: zero-click charge barely decreased (from 38.1% to 36.2%).
That means AI Overviews don’t mechanically enhance zero-click conduct
AI Overviews are reshaping the search panorama in actual time and entrepreneurs can now not depend on rankings alone. Visibility now means incomes a spot within the reply itself. To succeed, entrepreneurs might want to create content material that works throughout the evolving complexities of AI search, and that provides customers actual worth, no clicks required.
What Proportion of Queries Are Triggering AI Overviews?
We checked out 10M+ key phrases and outlined the proportion of all queries which are presently triggering an AI Overview.
And the info exhibits they’re quickly growing in 2025:
- AI Overviews had been triggered for six.49% of queries in January…
- That climbed to 7.64% in February (an 18% enhance)…
- After which as much as 13.14% by March (72% progress from the earlier month)
This implies AI Overviews are greater than a passing characteristic. They’re altering how data is discovered on-line. Most notably, informational content material—the type that gives solutions and insights—has been most affected by AI Overviews.
Google’s AI Overviews now seem in over 13% of all searches—and that quantity continues to climb. We all know that inclusion isn’t random; it’s a belief sign. Manufacturers that create constant and expert-level content material energy AI solutions. On this new search engine optimization panorama, authority doesn’t simply rank—you grow to be the reply.
What Sort of Queries Are Triggering AI Overviews?
We analyzed 10,000 phrases that set off AI Overviews. This is what we discovered:
Typical Options of Key phrases That Set off an AI Overview
These values present that AI Overviews presently have a tendency to seem for long-tail, low-difficulty informational queries—not high-volume transactional key phrases.
That is in step with Google’s earlier rollout methods for options like Featured Snippets and Folks Additionally Ask (PAA). These started with fact-based queries earlier than increasing into ambiguous or controversial matters.
For instance, the Informational question ‘What’s BMR’ presently triggers an AI Overview:
Whereas the Industrial question ‘Greatest protein powder’ doesn’t:
Our information exhibits that AI Overviews are beginning with the most secure bets—low-competition, fact-based informational queries with low CPC and issue. This mirrors the early days of Featured Snippets. However make no mistake: that is the testing part. For companies, because of this top-of-funnel content material—like definitions, comparisons, and FAQs—is the place we’re seeing essentially the most change thus far. Whereas this shift might alter how customers work together with search outcomes, it additionally opens up new alternatives for visibility and model authority.
So, the query is: is Google simply testing AI Overviews in low-risk areas earlier than increasing them to extra queries?
We analyzed 10M+ key phrases to outline how the search intent of queries that set off an AI Overview has modified over time for clues…
The Search Intent of Queries That Set off an AI Overview
This breakdown confirms a transparent perception: AI Overviews should not focusing on conversion-heavy content material—but.
However the share of key phrases triggering an AI Overview with business, transactional, and navigational intent has all barely grown since January:
- Industrial queries: up from 6.28% in January to eight.69% in March
- Transactional queries: up from 1.69% to 1.76%
- Navigational queries: up from 0.74% to 1.43%
What It Means:
- High-of-the-funnel, informational content material is essentially the most at-risk from AI Overviews.
- Solely a small share of key phrases that set off an AI Overview are business, transactional, or navigational. However there was a rise within the variety of middle-of-the-funnel and bottom-of-the-funnel phrases that set off AI Overviews since January.
- Navigational AI Overviews are doubling—a significant sign that even branded site visitors is in danger.
Excessive-Alternative Key phrases (For Now)
The overwhelming majority of AI Overviews are targeted on low-CPC, informational queries. Which means commercially invaluable key phrases—particularly these with CPC above $2 and Key phrase Issue beneath 30%—are nonetheless largely untouched.
We filtered these utilizing Semrush’s CPC and KD information, to determine queries which are:
- Excessive-value
- Not but triggering AI Overviews
- Nonetheless comparatively straightforward to rank for
These are your low-competition, high-reward key phrases—and excellent for focusing on whereas AI disruption remains to be restricted to the highest of the funnel.
Examples embrace:
|
Key phrase |
February 2025 Search Quantity |
CPC |
KD |
|
begin your personal insurance coverage enterprise |
30 |
$4.68 |
23% |
|
detachable prosthodontics |
480 |
$4.33 |
10% |
|
how a lot to put in sliding glass door |
390 |
$4.46 |
28% |
|
worker efficiency evaluation questions |
390 |
$2.84 |
20% |
|
how usually do you have to do cryotherapy |
210 |
$6.18 |
9% |
|
finest on-line inside adorning faculties |
210 |
$10.45 |
27% |
|
lamborghini urus insurance coverage value |
170 |
$3.51 |
8% |
|
why is my gasoline heater making noise |
170 |
$6.37 |
4% |
|
how do i grow to be a music instructor |
170 |
$5.74 |
19% |
|
value to switch roof on cellular dwelling |
140 |
$6.09 |
8% |
|
does householders insurance coverage cowl changing forged iron pipes |
140 |
$4.00 |
3% |
|
name heart agent efficiency scorecard |
110 |
$9.42 |
14% |
|
clear linear bathe drain |
90 |
$2.62 |
28% |
|
do stability sheet reconciliation |
90 |
$5.45 |
15% |
|
florida legislation on windshield substitute |
70 |
$3.48 |
4% |
These key phrases are commercially invaluable and never but too aggressive. And so they don’t set off AI Overviews—for now, no less than.
Is it nonetheless value focusing on a key phrase that’s triggering an AI Overview in Google? You’ve bought to take it on a case-by-case foundation.
Is your model referenced within the AI Overview? Are your opponents? If you happen to’re rating within the natural outcomes for a time period: what affect has the AI Overview had in your site visitors and conversions?
That can all affect whether or not it’s value re-structuring your content material—and incomes extra third-party citations—to optimize for showing within the AI Overview. Or whether or not your efforts could be higher spent focusing on extra commercially targeted queries which have a extra direct affect on income.
Key phrase Form: What Do AI Overviews Queries Look Like?
We analyzed the construction and size of AI Overviews-triggering key phrases and people that don’t set off an AI Overview.
Key phrases that set off AI Overviews are usually barely longer in phrase rely, and extra more likely to embrace clarifications, comparisons, or definitions—basic informational question shapes.
These queries are longer than navigational key phrases however shorter than conversational searches. They’re usually structured as:
- Definitions: “what’s intermittent fasting”
- Comparisons: “distinction between debit and credit score”
- Clarifications: “can canines eat grapes”
These sorts of queries have been the cornerstone of most search engine optimization content material methods for years. Now manufacturers must compete towards AI Overviews to earn consideration—and clicks—in these SERPs.
Takeaway: Google prefers predictable, fact-based questions the place it will probably confidently summarize a consensus reply.
AI Overviews are exhibiting up most frequently on low-CPC, low-volume queries—with almost 60% of key phrases having below 100 month-to-month searches. A major share—over 65%—fall into the 21–60 Key phrase Issue vary, indicating that Google is focusing on queries which are reasonably aggressive in natural search, however nonetheless provide little advert income potential.
However right here’s the deeper perception:
95% of key phrases with AI Overviews both don’t have any adverts or extraordinarily low CPC.
Which means Google is deploying AI Overviews totally on queries which are tough to monetize—intentionally avoiding disruption to its advert income mannequin.
Key takeaway: AI Overviews are spreading throughout your entire buyer journey—however Google is beginning with the most secure, least worthwhile queries. So whereas consumer expertise is altering, the enterprise mannequin behind search stays intact—for now.
The place AI Overviews Are Displaying Up: SERP Characteristic Overlap
Are AI Overviews changing current SERP options, or showing alongside them?
We examined which options most frequently sit subsequent to AI Overviews within the SERPs to seek out out.
What This Tells Us:
- AI Overviews are being layered on prime of current codecs moderately than changing them—no less than for now
- Visible-rich and structured content material sorts—movies, opinions, FAQs—look extra more likely to survive
- Basic monetization options (Advertisements, Purchasing, Information) are hardly ever paired with AI Overviews (below 1%)
A few of the websites being included essentially the most are Reddit, Quora, and YouTube, with video seeing the biggest enhance of mentions and inclusions in AI Overviews (no less than in current months). As AI tech will get higher at parsing movies for textual content, I solely count on this to proceed.
Class Tendencies: Which Verticals Are Being Disrupted First?
Which industries have been most affected by AI Overviews thus far?
To search out out, we appeared on the share progress from September 2024 to March 2025 within the variety of SERPs that includes AI Overviews throughout completely different verticals, evaluating early and present rollout intervals.
Key Observations:
1. Science Is the AI Overview Frontline (+22.27%)
Science content material is wealthy in structured, well-documented, consensus solutions—making it straightforward to synthesize.
And that’s put it on the AI Overview frontline.
2. Well being, Folks & Society, Regulation & Authorities: Google Is Weighing In On Delicate Topics
On one hand, it’s not stunning that Well being, Folks & Society, and Regulation & Authorities have seen an enormous rise in AI Overview protection. All three industries are dominated by informational queries.
Then again, it’s stunning to see Google roll out AI Overviews so aggressively in three industries that so usually lack consensus solutions and include greater than their fair proportion of regulatory strain and misinformation dangers.
Key takeaway: This implies Google believes its fashions have grow to be extra dependable and fact-anchored.
3. Information and Sports activities: Google Is Shying Away From Actual-Time Info
Information and Sports activities are two classes which are virtually fully made up of searches for up-to-date informational content material.
The actual fact these classes are lagging behind the typical progress in AI Overviews suggests Google remains to be cautious of masking current occasions with AI-generated content material.
Key takeaway: Google is treading calmly round searches for breaking information and real-time data, the place there isn’t sufficient data to current a consensus reply to a question.
4. Meals & Drink and Residence & Backyard: Surprisingly Sluggish Progress
Intuitively, you’d count on Meals & Drink and Residence & Backyard to have seen the same progress in AI Overviews as industries like Pets & Animals and Autos & Autos. All 4 classes have the same mixture of Transactional/Informational key phrases, in spite of everything.
Nonetheless, Meals & Drink and Residence & Backyard queries are triggering considerably fewer AI Overviews than industries with the same search intent distribution.
These are two classes to control over time.
5. Actual Property & Purchasing: Noticeable Laggards
Actual Property & Purchasing have seen the slowest progress in AI Overviews.
Which is sensible, given these two industries are made up of a a lot greater share of Industrial and Transactional queries than others.
Actual Property’s lack of progress additionally means that location-based content material is secure (for now).
I consider AI Overviews like a much less visible Native Pack. If I had been trying to find ‘pizza NYC’ and I noticed Joe’s Pizza within the Native Pack, there’s a good likelihood I’d not go to that web site. I’d take a look at the situation, some photos, perhaps some opinions, and simply go to purchase a slice. Within the case of Google’s AI Overviews or AI Mode, I could not have all of that context (photos, opinions, and so forth.), so I might need to seek for the positioning.
Being listed within the AI output can and will set off navigational searches. The one distinction right here (properly, not the one distinction) is that to get into the “AI” you need not optimize your Google Enterprise Profile; you want to “optimize” your complete net profile. And that is a wider, complete, sophisticated, and holistic course of than “optimizing” for one thing.
Strategic Takeaways for Entrepreneurs & SEOs:
|
Threat Stage |
Industries (primarily based on AI SERP share progress) |
Urged Technique |
|
🔥 Very Excessive |
Science, Well being, Folks & Society, Regulation & Authorities |
Transfer past informational content material. Prioritize distinct POVs, skilled commentary, and interactive codecs (e.g. instruments, video). |
|
⚠️ Reasonable |
Journey, Jobs & Training, Electronics, Web & Telecom |
Strengthen authority indicators—authorship, skilled sourcing, credentials, and linked references. |
|
🟡 Rising |
Pets, Autos, Finance, Magnificence, Boards |
Put together for hybrid SERPs—optimize now for blends of AI, natural, PAA, and multimedia |
|
✅ Safer (for now) |
Information, Actual Property, Purchasing, Video games, Meals & Drink |
Give attention to E-E-A-T, however monitor carefully—these classes are decrease on the rollout curve however might rise quick. |
AI Overview Growth by Business (Key phrase Set off Progress)
Which internet sites have been most affected by AI Overviews?
To search out out, we checked out how the common variety of a website’s key phrases triggering AI Overviews has modified from January to March 2025, revealing which industries are accelerating—and the way quickly.
Throughout almost all industries, February confirmed a dip or gentle decline, however March exploded—with most sectors greater than doubling their AI Overview-triggering key phrases in comparison with February.
Key Highlights
|
Business |
Progress (March vs January) |
Notable Perception |
|
Actual Property |
+258% |
Largest 2-month leap—AI Overviews flooding native/location-based content material |
|
Transportation |
+223% |
Sharp March soar—mobility & infrastructure FAQs scaling quick |
|
Eating places |
+273% |
Solely class with constant progress in each February & March |
|
Retail |
+206% |
Huge spike in March—indicators potential shift towards product-layer queries |
|
Insurance coverage |
+209% |
Excessive progress regardless of low visibility in early AI Overview exams |
Which Industries Obtain the Most Hyperlinks From AI Overviews?
Not each AI Overview hyperlinks out to a website.
So, we additionally appeared on the common variety of key phrases for which a website is actively included inside an AI Overview abstract. In different phrases, websites that do not simply present within the conventional natural hyperlinks when AI Overviews seem, however as a part of the AI-generated reply. It is a vital distinction: whereas many SERPs might show an AI Overview, not all domains earn visibility inside it.
By evaluating February to January and March to each months, we are able to observe how Google’s mannequin advanced by way of trusting domains to energy its summaries. A dip in February suggests a recalibration part—doubtless associated to high quality indicators, information testing, or coverage refinement.
What we’ve got to recollect is that LLMs and their search utilities haven’t got refined crawlers with rendering and so they do not personal the preferred browser on this planet – like Google does. This can change optimization methods; LLMs and new AI search utilities will doubtless should lean on feeds, databases and APIs greater than we’re used to. You may already see that with the addition of Product Feed ingestion for Chat GPT. Totally different strategies of discovery may provide SEOs an entire new listing of potential issues to optimize.
How Semrush Can Assist You Thrive within the AI Overview Period
Our suite of search engine optimization instruments make it straightforward to optimize for AI Overviews—and see the way you’re performing in them.
Right here’s how:
- Key phrase Overview helps you discover low-KD, mid-volume informational phrases which are commercially invaluable, not but too aggressive.
- Our Key phrase Magic Software helps you create content material that mirrors the way in which individuals (and AI) ask questions—boosting your possibilities of inclusion in summaries.
- Natural Analysis helps you perceive which opponents are showing in AI outcomes—and what content material format or construction helps them seem there.
- Place Monitoring helps you retain a pulse in your AI Overview presence and associated visibility. It is going to additionally warn you to shifts so you’ll be able to act rapidly.
- AI Toolkit helps small and mid-sized companies monitor total visibility and uncover market share alternatives.
For advanced wants, Semrush Enterprise gives superior options tailor-made to the brand new AI search panorama:
- AI Overview Evaluation: Included inside Semrush Enterprise to observe how your pages seem in Google’s AI Overviews, so you’ll be able to optimize content material and construction to extend visibility in these summaries.
- AI Optimization (AIO): Analyze how your model is represented throughout AI search platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. AIO permits precision monitoring of brand name mentions, sentiment, sources, and opponents in actual time, so manufacturers can perceive and develop their presence.
Are We Heading In direction of a Publish-Click on World?
AI Overviews signify a shift not simply in rating—however in how Google solutions questions. Because the SERP turns into extra generative, search engine optimization turns into extra about presence than place.
Manufacturers that adapt quick will construct belief, earn SERP visibility, and thrive within the post-click world.
