What has changed
For years, a search on Google returned a list of links, sometimes with a map or a featured snippet. Now many searches show an AI Overview at the top: a generated summary that answers the question directly and links to some of the sources it drew on. At the same time, a growing number of people ask AI assistants — ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity and others — for recommendations and explanations instead of searching at all.
For businesses, this raises reasonable questions. Will fewer people click through to websites? Can we appear in these answers? Is there anything we should do differently?
The honest answer is that some things have changed, many fundamentals haven’t, and nobody can guarantee a place in an AI-generated answer.
Where AI Overviews appear — and where they don’t
AI Overviews tend to appear more on informational queries — questions, explanations, comparisons — than on searches with clear local or transactional intent. A search like “how long does teeth whitening last” is more likely to trigger one than “teeth whitening clinic near me”, which usually still shows a map pack and service pages.
That matters for how worried you should be. If most of your enquiries come from local, high-intent searches, the map pack and your own pages remain central. If you rely on informational content to attract visitors — guides, how-tos, definitions — you are more exposed, because some searchers will get their answer without clicking.
Google changes when and how AI Overviews appear frequently, so check the searches that matter to your business directly rather than relying on general rules.
How AI assistants find information
AI assistants work in different ways. Some answer from what they learned during training; others search the web in real time and cite sources; many combine both. The details vary by product and change often.
A few patterns are consistent:
- Assistants that search the web often rely on sources that already rank well or are widely referenced.
- They draw on content that states facts clearly and is easy to extract.
- They tend to mention businesses and brands that are consistently described across many sources — your website, directories, reviews, press coverage, industry sites.
You can’t control what an assistant says. You can make accurate information about your business easier to find and harder to misunderstand.
What businesses can realistically do
1. Keep the foundations strong
AI Overviews draw on pages Google has crawled and indexed. If your important pages have indexing problems, slow load times or confusing structure, they are less likely to be used as sources anywhere. A technical SEO review is still the right starting point.
2. Write content that answers questions directly
Pages that are useful as sources share some traits:
- They answer the core question early and plainly, then add detail.
- They use clear headings that match the questions people ask.
- They include specific facts: what’s included, how the process works, what affects cost, how long things take.
- They avoid vague marketing language that says little.
This is simply good writing for people, and it happens to be easier for AI systems to interpret too. Our SEO content service is built around this approach.
3. Be clear about who you are
AI systems need to understand your business as an entity: its name, what it does, where it operates, who runs it. Help them by:
- keeping your name, address, phone number and services consistent across your website, Google Business Profile and directories
- having a clear About page with real information about the business and its people
- using structured data (Organization or LocalBusiness, Service, FAQ where appropriate) that matches what’s on the page
- showing credentials, qualifications and memberships where they are relevant and real
4. Earn mentions from credible sources
Assistants and search engines both pay attention to what others say about you. Reviews on the platforms your customers use, mentions in local or industry publications, listings in reputable directories and partnerships with recognised organisations all add to the picture. There is no shortcut here; it is built over time.
5. Show real experience
Generic content is easy to generate and easy to replace with an AI summary. Content based on real experience — your process, your observations about common problems, the questions customers actually ask you — is harder to replicate and more likely to be worth citing.
6. Make your site worth the click
When an AI Overview answers the basic question, the people who still click through are often further along — looking for a provider, a price or a detailed comparison. Pages that make the next step easy, with clear contact options and the details buyers need, get more from the traffic that does arrive.
What not to do
- Don’t buy “guaranteed AI visibility”. No one controls inclusion in AI Overviews or assistant answers.
- Don’t mass-produce AI-written pages to cover every possible question. Thin, repetitive content tends to be ignored and can weaken the site overall.
- Don’t abandon SEO fundamentals for tactics that promise to “game” AI systems. Those tactics are usually short-lived.
- Don’t block AI crawlers without thinking it through. Blocking some crawlers can reduce the chance your content is used by certain products. Whether that trade-off is right depends on your business, and it should be a deliberate decision.
How to measure it
Measuring AI visibility is still imperfect. Practical options include:
- checking your most important searches manually for AI Overviews and noting whether you’re cited
- watching Search Console for changes in impressions and clicks on informational queries
- asking assistants the questions your customers ask and recording which businesses they mention
- tracking referral traffic from AI assistants in your analytics, where it appears
Treat these as directional signals. Keep enquiries and bookings as the main measure of success.
The bottom line
AI-generated answers change how some searches play out, particularly informational ones. They don’t change what makes a business worth recommending: accurate information, useful content, a technically sound site and a credible reputation. Those are things you can work on. Inclusion in any specific answer is not something anyone can promise.
If you want help preparing your site and business information for AI-driven search, our AI search optimization service explains what we do — and what we don’t claim.