Among the notable declines in visibility were seen in education, entertainment, and e-commerce searches. Platforms like Reddit and Quora are rarely mentioned in current discussions.

Google’s AI Overviews now appear in less than 7% of search queries, marking one of ten significant findings from a recent analysis of AI Overviews.

The decline in AI-generated answer visibility began in mid-April, with the percentage of Google Search results without SGE increasing sharply from 25% to 65%. Google officially introduced AI Overviews in the U.S. during Google I/O in May, but their appearance remained limited, appearing in only 15% of queries. Issues with accuracy surfaced early, including instances where Google suggested unconventional actions like drinking urine and consuming rocks, prompting Google to pledge improvements to AI Overviews.

These insights were shared with Search Engine Land by BrightEdge, using their enterprise SEO platform and BrightEdge Generative Parser, which has been monitoring AI Overviews (previously Search Generative Experience) since late last year.

In subsequent months, AI Overviews decreased, dropping from 11% to 7% of queries by June, according to BrightEdge’s data. However, mid-June saw a temporary uptick before a significant decline. Particularly affected were sectors like education, entertainment, and e-commerce, where AI Overviews’ presence dwindled notably:

• Education queries saw AI Overviews drop from 26% to 13%.
• Entertainment queries plummeted from 14% to nearly 0%.
• Ecommerce queries decreased from 26% to 9%.

Furthermore, the physical space occupied by AI Overviews atop Google’s search results shrank by an average of 13%, reflecting Google’s ongoing adjustments.

Google also reduced duplication between AI Overviews and Classic Search results, emphasizing its “Let Google do the searching for you” approach, which predicts relevant follow-up queries based on search intent. This shift has led to changes in the types of queries triggering AI Overviews:

• Increases were noted in queries like “Best” (+50%), “what is” (+20%), “how to” (+15%), and “symptoms of” (+12%).
• Decreases were observed in “Vs” (-20%), brand-specific (-15%), general product (-14%), and lifestyle-related (-12%) queries.

User-generated content (UGC) platforms like Reddit and Quora saw a significant decline in AI Overviews citations, with reductions of 85.71% and 99.69%, respectively, by June. This reflects Google’s recognition of these platforms’ reliability challenges for AI-generated information.

Additionally, Google halved the number of product comparison tables featured in AI Overviews starting June 1st, and both product viewers and carousels appeared significantly less frequently. Ordered and unordered lists, once prevalent in AI Overviews, now seem less often, possibly due to Google’s efforts to streamline content presentation.

In June, financial warnings in AI Overviews increased by 10%, paralleling a similar trend for healthcare queries.

Despite these changes, AI Overviews remain a focal point for SEOs, publishers, and content creators, challenging traditional search models. Concerns persist about the impact on organic search traffic since the introduction of SGE and AI Overviews. Google’s evolving approach signals continued transformation in search behavior, though specific data supporting these changes has yet to be disclosed.

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