The state of AI in Google Search
Modified on March 26, 2025 (6:20 AM)100% human-written
What are AI Overviews?
AI Overviews (AIO), initially branded Search Generative Experience (SGE), are an AI feature of Google Search results that generate answers based on multiple sources.
(1) AI Overview (2) Sources used to generate this AI Overview (3) Regular featured snippets
Launch and history of AI Overviews
AI Overviews were initially launched on May 10th 2023 during the Google I/O conference. They were then still known as Search Generative Experience (SGE).
Initially, AI Overviews were only available through Google Search Labs. The rollout for all Google users took place on May 14th 2024, though it was still limited to people in the USA.
Since Q3/Q4 of 2024 multiple other countries and regions like the UK, Japan, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, and many more also gained access to AIOs. The EU was still left out at the point in time.
Since March 25th 2025, the following 9 European countries gained access to AI Overviews as well: Austria, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. However, not all national languages are supported yet, and AIOs are only active for logged in users over the age of 18.
How often are AI Overviews shown?
According to the most recent studies, AI Overviews are currently shown in the Google Search results for about 47% of searches.
There have been big shifts in the visibility of AI Overviews in the last twelve months:
- Up to and including the first quarter of 2024 about 84% (!) of all searches on Google contained an AI Overview
- This number steeply dropped to 35% in April 2024 and was down to only about 7% by July 2024. The poor quality of some AI Overviews and the fuss made about it in the SEO world (and even in mainstream media) were undoubtedly related to this decline of AIOs being shown.
- The latest study from Botify and DemandSphere showed that as the quality of AI Overviews improved, so did their visibility, going back up to almost half of all searches (47%) in December of 2024. *
* For clarity: these numbers are specifically for AI Overviews being shown in the USA.
Useful references
- https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-overviews: official Google documentation
- https://www.brightedge.com/ai-overviews#h2-12: list of "live updates" based on BrightEdge studies
- https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/14901683: availability of AI Overviews (regions and countries)