If you've searched Google lately, you've seen it: an AI-written summary above the usual results, with a few links tucked beside or beneath it. Google calls these AI Overviews. For a local business owner, the question isn't whether they're “good” or “bad.” It's what they change about how customers find you, and what to do about it.
AI Overviews are one piece of a larger shift. Our full comparison is on the AI search vs Googlepage. Here we'll stay focused on Google itself.
What AI Overviews Are, in Plain English
An AI Overview is a generated answer that Google shows at the top of some search results. It pulls from web pages Google already indexes and links to some of them as sources. Google reported on its Q2 2025 earnings call that AI Overviews reached 2 billion monthly users. That is a large audience, and it is why this is worth your attention even though Google search itself is not going anywhere.
What the Data Says About Clicks
Pew Research Center analyzed March 2025 browsing data from 900 US adults and 68,879 unique Google searches. Of those searches, about 18% produced an AI summary. When a summary appeared, users clicked a traditional result link in 8% of visits, compared with 15% of visits when there was no summary. They clicked a link inside the summary in 1% of visits. Pew notes the study is observational, so it shows a difference in behavior, not proof of what causes it.
The study is observational, so it shows a pattern rather than proof of cause. What matters for you is practical: on searches where an AI Overview appears, fewer people click through to any website, so being named or linked in that answer carries more weight.
Note also that Overviews don't appear on every search. Many local searches still lead with the map pack and your Google Business Profile, which is why that profile remains one of the most valuable assets you have.
What This Means for Oregon Businesses
Informational searches are most affected
Questions like “how much notice do I need to hire a wedding photographer” or “what does a heat pump install involve” are the kind of searches AI summaries tend to answer directly. If your blog traffic is built on generic how-to content, expect it to be squeezed.
Local, high-intent searches are still won on the basics
“Plumber in Oregon City” still depends on your Google Business Profile, your reviews, your proximity, and your service pages. Customers who are ready to call tend to use the map and your reviews. Keep those strong.
Being the source matters
When an Overview does appear, the businesses linked as supporting sources are the ones whose pages answer the question clearly. Specific, experience-based content, written by someone who actually does the work, is the content worth having.
What Google Says You Need to Do
Less than you might think, and that is good news. Google's documentation says a page needs to be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet, and that there are no additional requirements, special optimizations, or special schema to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Indexing and serving still aren't guaranteed.
In practice that means doing the unglamorous things well:
- Make sure your important pages are indexed and not accidentally blocked. Check Google Search Console.
- Give each service and each service area its own page with specific, honest detail.
- Keep your Google Business Profile complete, current, and active.
- Collect and answer real reviews.
- Write for people. Answer the question a customer would actually ask, in your own voice, with your real experience.
- Keep the site fast and readable on a phone.
How to Tell Whether It Is Affecting You
In Google Search Console, look at impressions and clicks over the past several months for your key pages. Rising impressions with flat or falling clicks can be a sign that more searches are being answered on the results page. It isn't proof by itself, but it is a useful flag. Then run a few of your real customer queries in Google and see whether an Overview appears and who is named. We walk through the process in How to Check Whether ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity Recommend Your Business.
Do Not Panic, Do Not Ignore It
Google still handles the large majority of searches, and nothing about AI Overviews makes SEO obsolete. The same fundamentals that rank you in Google are the ones that earn a mention in the AI layer on top of it. But the layer is real, it is large, and it names fewer businesses than a page of results does. Treat it as another place customers decide.
Want to know where you stand? Our AI Visibility & Authority service begins with an audit of how you show up in Google and in AI assistants. Or reach out and ask us anything.
Sources: Pew Research Center, “Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results,” July 22, 2025; Alphabet Q2 2025 earnings, as reported by Search Engine Journal; Google Search Central, AI features documentation.
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