AI Overviews

AI Overviews is the summary block Google generates above the classic results on some queries, built from pages it has crawled and carrying links to a small set of sources. It sits inside Google search itself, which is what separates it from AI Mode, a chat-style interface with its own behaviour, and from answer engines such as ChatGPT or Perplexity. GEO and AEO describe the wider work of getting content picked up by generative systems. AI Overviews is one surface that work targets, and the easiest one to check, because the queries involved already sit in your Search Console data. For a buyer, the term is close to useless as a filter on its own. Course pages name Google AI Overviews as a target engine in 29 of 44 programs (checked 18 September 2026). Ask what the module actually teaches: how to work out which queries trigger the block, and how to track citations against the clicks you lose.

Example

Someone searches for how to price a retainer for local SEO. Google prints a short summary above the links and cites a handful of pages beside it. The searcher reads it and never clicks. The cited page still collects the brand mention. The competitor ranking below it collects neither a mention nor a visit. Measuring that split is the job.