Google AI Overviews and clicks in 2026: what Indian businesses should do

When a Google AI Overview appears at the top of the results, outbound clicks to websites fall by roughly 38 to 61 percent, depending on the study and the method. The loss is concentrated on informational questions, while local, transactional and brand searches still send most of their clicks. Indian businesses should answer questions clearly, keep their Google Business Profile complete and work to be cited inside the AI answer.

Google now answers a large share of questions itself, above the links. For a business that relies on search enquiries, the useful question is which searches still produce clicks and how to be named in the answer when they do not. This guide pulls together the main studies from 2025 and 2026 and turns them into a plan.

How much do AI Overviews reduce clicks?

Every serious study finds a drop. The size varies because each one measures something different: real user behaviour, Search Console averages or a controlled experiment.

Pew Research (2025). Pew tracked the browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025. Users clicked a traditional result on 8 percent of visits when an AI summary appeared, against 15 percent when it did not. Only 1 percent clicked a link inside the summary itself, and 26 percent of searches with a summary ended the session, against 16 percent without one (The Register, reporting Pew Research, 2025). Google called the method flawed.

Ahrefs (2026). A study of 300,000 keywords found that the top-ranked page earns a 58 percent lower average click-through rate when an AI Overview is present. Position one CTR on those keywords fell from 7.3 percent in December 2023 to 1.6 percent in December 2025. An April 2025 version of the same study had found 34.5 percent, so the gap has widened (Ahrefs, 2026).

Seer Interactive (2025). Across 3,119 search terms from 42 client organisations, organic CTR on queries with AI Overviews fell from 1.76 percent in June 2024 to 0.61 percent in September 2025, a 61 percent drop. Paid CTR on the same queries fell 68 percent. Queries without AI Overviews also lost clicks, about 41 percent organic, which shows other changes in Search are at work too (Seer Interactive, 2025).

The first randomised field study (2026). Researchers from the Indian School of Business and Carnegie Mellon University gave 1,065 US desktop Chrome users an extension that randomly hid AI Overviews, left them in place or sent searches to AI Mode. Across roughly 68,000 searches, AI Overviews appeared on about 41 to 42 percent of queries. Where they appeared, outbound organic clicks fell by about 38 percent in the April 2026 working paper (Search Engine Journal, 2026) and 39.8 percent in the June revision (PPC Land, 2026). Sponsored clicks did not change, and users rated their satisfaction the same with or without the overview. The AI Mode group clicked out even less. The paper has not yet been peer reviewed.

Google's position is different. Its head of Search wrote in 2025 that total organic click volume has been "relatively stable" year on year and that clicks from AI results are of higher quality, meaning people stay longer on the site. Google did not publish figures to support this (Google, 2025).

How often do AI Overviews appear, and for which searches?

Less often than many people assume. Semrush tracked more than 10 million keywords and found AI Overviews on 6.49 percent of queries in January 2025, rising to a peak of 24.61 percent in July 2025 and settling at 15.69 percent in November 2025 (Semrush, 2025). The randomised study saw a higher rate, around 41 percent, because it measured the searches real people typed, which lean towards questions.

The mix of queries is changing. In January 2025, 91.3 percent of queries that triggered an AI Overview were informational. By October that share was 57.1 percent, as commercial, transactional and navigational searches began to show them too. Industry matters a great deal: science and computing topics had the highest rates, while real estate, shopping, and arts and entertainment were each under 3 percent (Semrush, 2025).

Semrush also found that, for the same keywords measured before and after an AI Overview appeared, the zero-click rate moved only slightly, from 33.75 to 31.53 percent. Its reading is that informational queries were already low-click before AI arrived.

AI Overviews and AI Mode in India

India has been an early market for every stage of Google's AI search.

Google says that in its largest markets, including India, AI Overviews have driven a more than 10 percent increase in usage for the types of queries where they appear. It also says more people use Google Lens in India each month than in any other country (Google India, 2025). In July 2025, AI Mode had over 100 million monthly active users across India and the US (MediaNama, 2025). By July 2026 Google reported more than 1 billion monthly users of AI Mode worldwide, and said AI Overviews and AI Mode had been brought together into one Search experience (Google, 2026).

None of the click studies above used Indian users, so the exact effect in India is not measured. The direction is visible in publisher data. Similarweb figures for April 2026 showed year-on-year traffic falls of 50 percent for Hindustan Times, 33 percent for The Indian Express and 26 percent for News18. Executives at Indian Express Digital and OneIndia pointed to AI Overviews, alongside core updates and the move to chatbots (exchange4media, 2026).

For an Indian business, two points follow. Questions in Hindi, Gujarati and other languages now get an AI answer, so content in those languages can be cited. And voice and camera searches through Lens and Search Live lean towards conversational, question-style queries, which are the ones most likely to trigger an AI answer.

Which searches still send clicks?

The randomised study found that informational queries, 71 percent of its sample, accounted for almost all of the lost clicks. The effect on navigational and transactional queries could not be told apart from zero (PPC Land, 2026).

Local searches

Whitespark checked 540 local searches across six industries in 2025. For plain local-intent searches such as "personal injury lawyers in Phoenix", an AI Overview appeared only 15 percent of the time and the map pack appeared 93 percent of the time. For informational versions of the same topic, such as "how much do personal injury lawyers charge", the pattern reversed: 92 percent AI Overviews and 6 percent map pack (Whitespark, 2025).

For a clinic in Satellite or a CA in Navrangpura, "dentist near me" and "CA for GST in Ahmedabad" still lead to the map pack and the Google Business Profile. "How much does a root canal cost" now leads to an AI answer.

Transactional and brand searches

Searches to buy, book or reach a named company still send clicks. Semrush shows AI Overviews spreading into these queries, but the randomised study found no measurable loss of clicks on them. Brand searches matter even more now, because a customer who reads your name in an AI answer often searches for you directly next.

Being cited in the answer

Seer found that brands cited in an AI Overview earned 35 percent more organic clicks and 91 percent more paid clicks than brands left out on the same queries (Seer Interactive, 2025). Seer notes this is a correlation, not proof of cause, but it is the clearest sign that a citation still earns traffic.

Ranking alone is no longer enough to be cited. Ahrefs analysed 863,000 results pages in 2026 and found only 37.9 percent of AI Overview citations came from the top ten results, down from about 76 percent in mid-2025. Around 31 percent came from pages outside the top 100, because Google splits each question into related sub-searches and cites pages that appear across them. YouTube was the most cited domain (Ahrefs, 2026).

What Indian businesses should do now: an action plan

1. Put a direct answer at the top of each page

Open every service page and article with two or three sentences that answer the main question, including a number where possible: a price range, a timeline, a minimum order. Use headings that match how people ask, in English and in the language your customers search in.

2. Cover the follow-up questions

Because Google fans each question out into sub-searches, a page that answers the related questions is more likely to be picked up. A page on GST registration should also cover documents, fees, timelines and common rejections. Our guide to AI search optimisation in India has a 10-point checklist for this.

3. Use schema, accurately

Google says no special markup is needed for AI features and that pages only need to be indexed and eligible for a snippet. It also says structured data must match the visible text on the page (Google Search Central, 2025). We still add LocalBusiness, Service, Product and FAQPage schema, because it helps Google read the page, but it does not replace clear writing.

4. Treat Google Business Profile as a main channel

Local-intent searches still show the map pack nine times out of ten in the Whitespark data. Complete every field, choose accurate categories, add services with prices, post updates and reply to reviews. Keep the name, address and phone identical on Justdial, IndiaMART and every directory. Our Google Business Profile guide covers the setup, and our local SEO service handles it as ongoing work.

5. Build mentions outside your own website

AI answers draw heavily on other sites. Short YouTube videos that answer customer questions, genuine reviews, industry directories and local press all give Google more sources that name your business.

6. Measure enquiries, not only traffic

Traffic from AI features is counted inside the Search Console Performance report under the Web search type, with no separate line (Google Search Central, 2025). Track calls, WhatsApp clicks and form leads in GA4, check brand search volume each month, and test your main questions in AI Mode to see whether you are named.

Our AI SEO service covers this work and is included in SEO retainers from Rs 12,000 a month in India, or from $800 a month overseas.

Sources

• Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears (Pew Research study, as reported), The Register, 2025
• Update: AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 58%, Ahrefs, 2026
• AIO impact on Google CTR: September 2025 update, Seer Interactive, 2025
• AI Overviews cut organic clicks 38%, field study finds, Search Engine Journal, 2026
• AI Overviews cut publisher clicks 39.8% in first randomized study, PPC Land, 2026
• Semrush AI Overviews study, Semrush, 2025
• The prevalence of AI Overviews in local search, Whitespark, 2025
• Only 38% of AI Overview citations come from the top 10, Ahrefs, 2026
• AI in Search is driving more queries and higher quality clicks, Google, 2025
• AI features and your website, Google Search Central, 2025
• Google Search: Introducing AI Mode in India, Google India, 2025
• Google AI Mode now available to everyone in India, 9to5Google, 2025
• Google AI Mode expands to five new languages including Hindi, MediaNama, 2025
• New languages in AI Mode and Search Live debuts in India, Google India, 2025
• Search Live comes to more Indian languages, Google India, 2026
• Google's AI Overviews are now available in India in Hindi and English, Digit, 2024
• Q2 2026 earnings call: remarks from our CEO, Google, 2026
• Why is news traffic falling across the globe?, exchange4media, 2026

Frequently asked questions