Glossary · A
AI Overviews
AI Overviews are generated summaries that Google shows at the top of some search results pages, with cited sources, above the conventional results.
Extended definition
In more detail.
An Overview appears when Google judges that a generated summary serves the query. It draws on indexed pages, cites a selection of them, and leaves the ranked results beneath. For a site, an Overview can absorb the click a ranked result would have received, or can cite the site and send a higher-intent visitor. Eligibility follows the same foundations as search: crawlable, indexed, structured, credible pages that answer the query directly.
In our work
Where it appears.
We measure Overview presence and citation alongside rankings for the same queries and treat it as a separate surface from AI Mode. See AI Overviews versus AI Mode.
By David Selakovic · Published 2026-10-16 · Revised 2026-10-16 · Reviewed every 180 days