Glossary /AI search & GEO
AI Overview
Google’s generated summary at the top of a results page, which answers the query directly and links to a few sources.
An AI Overview is a synthesised answer Google places above the organic results for a growing share of queries, with links to the sources it drew on. It occupies the position that used to belong to the first result, and it pushes the traditional listings below the fold on the queries where it appears.
The sources it cites are not simply the pages ranking first. Google retrieves passages relevant to the specific sub-questions the answer needs, so a page ranked well down the results can be cited if it answers one part particularly cleanly — and a page ranked first can be omitted.
Its arrival is the main reason impressions and clicks have decoupled. Informational queries lose the most traffic, since the summary satisfies them outright, while queries where the reader needs to evaluate options or take action still produce visits.