Are AI Overviews stealing your clicks? Check before you panic.

The short answer

For some searches, yes. Pew Research Center found that when Google showed an AI summary, people clicked a regular search result in 8 percent of visits, compared with 15 percent when there was no summary. But only 18 percent of the searches in the study showed one, mostly longer questions.

Before you rewrite anything, open Search Console and find out why your clicks changed. If you appeared less often, AI Overviews are not the cause. If you appeared just as often and fewer people clicked, mostly on question-style searches, they may be.

What the Pew study found

Pew Research Center published the study on July 22, 2025. It used the real browsing of 900 U.S. adults who agreed to share it, covering 68,879 Google searches made in March 2025. The key numbers:

• An AI summary appeared on 18 percent of searches.
• With a summary on the page, people clicked a traditional result in 8 percent of visits. Without one, 15 percent.
• Links inside the summary itself were clicked in 1 percent of visits.
• People ended their browsing session after 26 percent of pages with a summary, against 16 percent of pages without one.

The kind of search mattered a lot. Searches that began with a question word such as who, what, when or why produced a summary 60 percent of the time. One- or two-word searches produced one 8 percent of the time, and searches of ten words or more, 53 percent.

What the study does not tell you

• It covers one month in early 2025. AI Overviews have changed since, and so has how often they appear.
• It measures every kind of search, from recipes to news, and does not single out searches for a local service.
• It covers Google only.
• It does not say whether the people who still click are better or worse customers. Google says clicks from results pages with AI Overviews tend to be higher quality. That is Google’s claim, and it is hard for anyone outside Google to check.

So the study shows AI Overviews can cut clicks. It cannot tell you whether they are cutting yours.

Which of your searches are exposed

A local business gets found through two kinds of searches.

Research questions like ‘how much does a new water heater cost’ or ‘why is my basement wet after rain’ are long, often start with a question word and can be answered in a paragraph. These are the searches most likely to show an AI Overview, and the ones where a click is most likely to be lost.

Hiring searches like ‘plumber near me’ or ’emergency plumber Louisville’ are short and end in a phone call. In Pew’s data, one- and two-word searches rarely produced a summary at all.

Search your own most valuable phrases in a private browser window and note what appears above your listing. That five-minute check tells you more about your business than any national average.

How to check AI Overviews in your own Search Console

Search Console is free, and it shows what Google itself recorded for your site. Google counts traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode inside the normal Web totals, so there is no separate AI report. That makes the comparison below a proxy. Search Console does not record which of your searches showed an AI Overview, so it cannot isolate AI Overview exposure. What it can do is show a pattern that fits one, or rule AI Overviews out when the drop has another cause.

1. Open Performance, then Search results, and leave the search type on Web.
2. Turn on all four numbers at the top: total clicks, total impressions, average CTR and average position.
3. Open the date filter, choose Compare, and set the last three months against the same three months a year earlier. Comparing with last year keeps seasonal swings out of the answer.
4. In the Queries table, sort by the difference in clicks to see which searches lost the most.
5. Add a filter: Query, then Custom (regex), and paste how|what|why|when|which|cost|best to isolate question-style searches. See how they changed compared with everything else. Search Console’s filtering help covers the comparison and regex options.
6. Repeat the comparison on the Pages tab for your service pages and your guides.

How to read what you find

Impressions fell, click rate held

You are appearing less often. That is a ranking, indexing or seasonal problem, and AI Overviews are not the cause. Check the Pages report for pages that dropped out of Google, and think about what changed on the site. Why a website is not showing on Google covers the usual reasons.

Impressions held, click rate fell on questions

You still show up, your average position stayed about the same, but fewer people click, mostly on question-style searches. That pattern fits AI Overviews answering the question on the results page. It is consistent with them, not proof: a new competitor or another change to the results page can produce the same numbers, so check a few of those searches yourself.

Click rate fell on your business name

People searching for you by name should still click. A drop there points somewhere else: your Business Profile, a competitor advertising on your name, or a problem with the site itself.

Nothing much changed

Then AI Overviews are not your problem today. Run the same comparison again each quarter.

What to do if AI Overviews are taking your question traffic

• Keep the guides. A question your page no longer gets the click for is still a question your page can be cited for. Put the answer in the first few sentences, with headings that match how people ask. How to show up in ChatGPT and Google AI answers covers how to write them.
• Put more effort where people hire. A clear page for each service and each area you cover, a complete Business Profile and steady reviews matter more than another blog post.
• Count leads, not only clicks. Calls, form entries and bookings pay the bills. If clicks fell and leads held, the lost clicks were mostly readers. Conversion tracking tells you which.
• Skip the tricks. Google’s AI features guidance says no special files, markup or optimizations are needed to appear in AI features. A page only has to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet. The controls Google offers to limit how your content appears, such as nosnippet, also limit your regular search listings, so for most businesses they cost more than they save.

When to ask for help

If the numbers point in different directions, or the drop is large and you cannot see why, have someone who reads Search Console every week look before you change your site. Search Console, Ahrefs and Semrush are the tools I work in daily as part of SEO for Louisville businesses, and the comparison above is where I would start with yours. If you also want to know how your business shows up in AI answers, that is AI search optimization.

Frequently asked questions

What are Google AI Overviews?

Short AI-written summaries that appear at the top of some Google results, with links to the pages they drew from. Google shows them only when its systems judge they add something to the regular results.

Does Search Console show AI Overview clicks separately?

No. Google includes traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode in the regular Web search totals. Comparing impressions and click rate over time is how you spot the effect.

Can I stop my site from appearing in AI Overviews?

Google’s controls, such as nosnippet and max-snippet, limit how your content appears in Search, including your normal listings. For most local businesses, blocking costs more than it saves.

Do I need special code to appear in AI Overviews?

No. Google says a page needs to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet, with no extra markup or AI files required. Clear answers on a well-built site do the work.

Are AI Overviews the same as AI Mode?

No. AI Mode is a separate, conversational search for longer questions. The differences, and one plan that covers both, are in Google AI Mode vs AI Overviews vs ChatGPT.