AI Overviews: what changes for SEO

What are AI Overviews?

AI Overviews are AI-generated answers that Google displays above the classic results, for some searches. In French, Google calls them Aperçus IA. They summarize a topic and point to web pages, through links built into the text or listed alongside it.

Google presents them as a starting point: the essentials of a complex topic, then links to dig deeper (documentation on AI features, updated on December 10, 2025). They do not show up on every query. They appear when Google’s systems judge generative AI to be useful.

Are AI Overviews the same thing as ChatGPT?

No. ChatGPT is a conversational assistant from OpenAI, used in its own interface. AI Overviews are part of Google Search. They rely on Google’s index and appear above the organic links. Both fall under GEO, but their sources and the way they are measured differ.

Since when have AI Overviews been available in France?

Google launched AI Overviews and AI Mode in France on July 22, 2026 (announcement on the Google France blog). Both features already existed in other countries since 2024 and 2025.

This date is a reference point in any traffic analysis. A drop in organic clicks in France from late July 2026 onward should first be compared with this rollout. Only then do you look for an algorithm update or a technical problem.

How does Google choose the sources of an AI Overview?

Google describes a technique called query fan-out. The system runs several related searches, on different subtopics and sources, to build the answer and find pages to cite. So it does not limit itself to the top ten results for the query typed.

The eligibility conditions are those of classic search. According to Google’s documentation, a page must:

• be indexed by Google;
• be eligible to be shown with a snippet (no nosnippet);
• meet the usual technical requirements of Google Search.

Google writes that there are “no additional requirements” and no special optimization needed to appear in AI Overviews. Its guide to optimizing for generative AI (updated on July 10, 2026) adds three clarifications:

• no AI-specific file or special markup is needed, llms.txt file included;
• there is no need to break content into tiny fragments;
• original content, which brings a point of view or data that an AI would not produce on its own, is more likely to be useful.

What is the impact of AI Overviews on clicks?

The study used here publishes its method: Seer Interactive (April 24, 2026), 53 brands, 5.47 million queries, data from January 2025 to February 2026. Seer is an American agency: apply these orders of magnitude to the French market with caution.

Situation (informational queries, 2025 average)	Organic CTR
No AI Overview shown	3.35%
AI Overview shown, brand cited	2.07%
AI Overview shown, brand not cited	0.94%

Two readings stand out. Being cited limits the loss: CTR more than doubles compared with a page that is not cited. But a cited page stays below the level of a query with no AI Overview.

Seer flags two caveats. The 0.94% figure is pulled down by a single account; without it, it is close to 1.61%. And the study cannot establish causality: these figures describe a trend, not a forecast for your site.

Paid results are affected too. According to the same study, ad CTR drops from 21.85% without an overview to 16.21% with one (February 2026).

How do you measure your presence in AI Overviews?

On June 3, 2026, Google announced a performance report dedicated to generative AI in Google Search Console. It has been open to all sites since August 31, 2026. Its documentation specifies what it contains:

Available	Missing
Impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode	Clicks
Cited pages (final URL)	Queries
Countries	Position
Devices and dates (day, week, month)	CTR

An impression is counted when a link to your site appears in a generative AI feature. Two links from the same site in the same answer count as a single impression. The report shows which pages are cited and where, but not for which queries or with how many clicks.

For a complete method, with prompt tracking and AI traffic in your analytics, see our page on how to measure AI visibility.

Can you stop your site from appearing in AI Overviews?

Yes. Since August 31, 2026, the Search generative AI control has been available for all sites, in the Search Console settings. Two options:

• Include (default): the content can appear in AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover’s generative AI features.
• Exclude: the content is no longer shown in these features. Google announces a delay of one to two days, sometimes longer.

Google states that this setting has no effect on ranking in the classic results. Nor does it cover model training, which is controlled with the Google-Extended token (see our page on GPTBot and AI crawlers). The nosnippet, data-nosnippet and max-snippet tags remain available to protect a specific passage.

What should you actually do about AI Overviews?

1. Isolate July 22, 2026 in your organic traffic curves for France, to read the effect of the rollout.
2. Open the AI report in Search Console and note the pages already cited.
3. Cross-check the losses: find the pages losing clicks while impressions stay stable. On those queries, the overview answers instead of the site.
4. Rework the key pages: direct answer at the top, self-contained sections, sourced and dated figures. The approach is detailed in our GEO optimization method.
5. Measure every month AI impressions, organic clicks and conversions, on the same pages.

AI Overviews do not replace SEO: they rely on Google’s index and on the pages it considers useful. For the overall framework, see our GEO guide.