Posted 3 hours ago3 hr comment_13254 Google’s AI Overviews appeared in 13.14% of all U.S. desktop searches in March, up from 6.49% in January. That’s a 102% surge in just two months, according to a new analysis of more than 10 million keywords by Semrush and Datos. Why we care. Google’s introduction of AI Overviews was the biggest shift since the arrival of featured snippets a decade ago. Google is forever changed and is becoming more of an answer engine than a search engine. That’s because AI Overviews generate answers rather than pointing searchers to websites, which studies have shown is impacting traffic and CTRs for many types of websites. Triggers. AI Overviews tend to appear for low-risk, fact-based content. However, Google is slowly creeping into conversion territory, according to Semrush: 88.1% of triggered queries are informational (e.g., “what is BMR”). 8.69% are commercial queries – up from 6.28% in January. 1.43% are navigational queries – this is double from 0.74% in January. Industry trends. The top five industries where AI Overview grew since January were: Science: Up 22.3% Health: Up 20.3% People & Society: Up 18.8% Law & Government: Up 15.2% Travel: Up 14.3% On the other end, real-time information categories (e.g., News, Sports) were the least unaffected – perhaps suggesting that “Google is still wary of covering recent events with AI-generated content,” according to Semrush. For now anyway. Zero click. AI Overview queries show higher-than-average zero-click rates. However, when comparing the same keywords pre- and post-AI Overview, zero-click behavior actually declined slightly, according to Semrush. It fell to 36.2% in March from 38.1% in January. As Semrush put it: “That suggests AI Overviews do not automatically increase zero-click behavior.” The study. Semrush AI Overviews Study: What 2025 SEO Data Tells Us About Google’s Search Shift View the full article
