In May 2024, Google rolled out AI Overviews to the U.S. search market. By July, they were rapidly expanding—and now, they’re changing how users interact with search results. These AI-generated summaries offer quick, clear answers right at the top of the search results page, often without requiring users to click into a website. Understanding how AI Overviews work — and what SEO teams must do next is essential for staying visible in this new search experience.
So what does this mean for marketers, content creators, and SEO teams? Mastering how AI Overviews work — and what SEO teams must do next is quickly becoming a critical part of any effective search strategy.
What Are AI Overviews?
Google’s Gemini large language model generates AI Overviews to provide immediate answers to complex queries. Unlike traditional featured snippets, AI Overviews pull together information from multiple sources, synthesize the content, and generate a natural-language response that’s often accompanied by citation links.
This means that Google isn’t just showing “the best result”—it’s attempting to summarize the entire search landscape.
Creating and Reverse-Engineering AI Overviews
The SEO software company Market Brew reverse-engineered the process to understand how these summaries form. Their research outlines a four-step pipeline that underpins how AI Overviews likely work:
- Query Expansion. Google doesn’t just process the user’s query—it fans it out into a set of sub-queries using semantic and statistical methods to broaden the intent.
- Passage Retrieval. These queries retrieve relevant text snippets (called “passages”) from across the web.
- Ranking with Embeddings. Rather than just relying on keywords, Google ranks passages using vector-based similarity—evaluating how conceptually related a passage is to the query.
- Response Generation. Gemini synthesizes the top passages into a coherent, user-friendly summary with source citations.
This system explains why some authoritative sources may not appear: if their content doesn’t align semantically or isn’t structured well for generation, the system may exclude them.
Why This Matters for SEO
AI Overviews mark a shift from searching and clicking to asking and receiving. That’s good for users—but tricky for websites that rely on search traffic.
But not all hope is lost. The good news is that Google still includes citations in the overview. In fact, data shows these links can sometimes receive more clicks than a standard result—especially if the content clearly contributes value to the AI’s synthesis.
A citation in an AI Overview can position your content above traditional organic search results.
How to Optimize for AI Overviews: GEO + AEO
Traditional SEO strategies still apply—but to increase your visibility in AI-generated content, you need to layer in two emerging optimization strategies:
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). This focuses on topical depth, clarity, and trust signals. LLMs need content that’s rich in insight and semantically relevant.
- Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). This involves structuring content in a way that’s easy for AI to parse and summarize—think clear headings, FAQ formats, bullet points, and schema markup.
How to Get Your Content Featured in AI Overviews
| Do This | Avoid This |
|---|---|
| Use structured formats like H2s, FAQs, and bullet lists | Writing walls of unformatted text |
| Focus on topic authority and depth | Shallow, keyword-stuffed content |
| Cite reputable sources | Making unsupported claims |
| Maintain technical SEO best practices | Inspiring page speed or mobile-friendliness |
| Observe AI Overview citations for your keywords | Relying only on keyword rankings |
The Future of Search: Visibility Without Ranking?
With AI Overviews, ranking #1 isn’t the only goal anymore. You now need to think in terms of visibility inside answers.
This means:
- Structuring content for summarization
- Creating content that offers value, clarity, and authority
- Monitoring which types of content Google tends to cite
- Treating AI as a reader and decision-maker in your SEO strategy
Final Thoughts
AI Overviews are still evolving, but one thing is clear—they’re not going away. As Google continues to invest in AI-powered search experiences, SEO teams must evolve alongside it.
Smart marketers won’t fear AI summaries—they’ll embrace them by creating clearer, more helpful content designed for both humans and machines.
Today, it’s not just about ranking. Being quoted is the new ranking.
Need help optimizing your content for AI Overviews?
Let’s explore strategies to get your content surfaced, cited, and clicked—even in an AI-first search world.
