AI Overview

DefinitionAn AI Overview is the AI-generated summary Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the pages it drew on.

AI Overviews grew out of Google's Search Generative Experience and launched widely in 2024. Google says they may use query fan-out, running several related searches to build a response. To be shown as a supporting link, a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet; there are no extra technical requirements (Google Search Central (opens in a new tab)).

Traffic from AI Overviews is included in Search Console's Performance report, and Search Console's generative AI performance reports show how often your URLs appeared in these features. In AI Rank Lab, Google AI Overview is one of the six engines you can run a prompt on (those runs use US English results), and the separate AI Overview batch check takes a country and language per query.

Learn it step by step

• How AI engines pick the sources they cite (AEO and GEO fundamentals)
• SEO, AEO and GEO: what each one means (AEO and GEO fundamentals)

Related terms

• AI Mode: AI Mode is a conversational search experience in Google Search that answers a question with an AI-written response and links, and lets you ask follow-ups.
• Query fan-out: Query fan-out is when an AI search system turns one question into several narrower searches, retrieves results for each and combines them into one answer.
• SERP (search engine results page): A SERP is the page a search engine shows for a query: organic results plus features such as AI Overviews, ads, maps, videos and "People also ask".
• Citation: A citation is a link or source reference an AI engine attaches to its answer, showing which page it took information from.