AI Overviews At the moment Seem for 83% of Branded Searches

That prompted us to analyze AI Overviews for branded searches on a bigger scale.

We discovered that AI Overviews now seem for 83% of branded queries, probably decreasing clicks to manufacturers’ personal web sites and giving third-party sources like Wikipedia, YouTube and LinkedIn an even bigger say in how a model seems in search outcomes.

We analyzed 232.8 million US desktop Google search-result crawls from July to September 2026, consisting of 92.5 million branded-keyword crawls and 140.2 million non-branded-keyword crawls.

As of September twenty ninth 2026, AI Overviews appeared in 82.91% of the US desktop search outcomes for branded key phrases. Taking a look at month-to-month averages, 73.3% of branded key phrases triggered AI Overviews, up from 65.1% in August and 61.3% in July.

That is a 12-percentage-point improve for branded searches between July and September, equal to roughly 20% development relative to July’s charge.

Non-branded searches additionally grew to become extra more likely to present an AI Overview, however their improve was smaller: 4.8 proportion factors over the identical interval.

In our earlier analysis on AI Overview triggers in November 2025, we discovered that AI Overviews have been vastly extra widespread for unbranded queries than for branded queries. That’s clearly now not the case. The hole between the 2 teams narrowed from 12.2 proportion factors in July to simply 5 factors in September.

Right here’s a direct comparability between our findings one yr in the past and right now (albeit with totally different samples):

AI Overviews can seem in a number of positions within the SERP, and though our analysis suggests AI Overviews universally cut back click-through charges, the worst impression happens when AI Overviews seem in place one to your model question—as a substitute of your area.

So we additionally checked the search outcomes for exact-name queries of 100 manufacturers (chosen from Interbrand’s Greatest International Manufacturers 2025) at 14 weekly checkpoints between July and September.

The looks of AI Overviews vastly elevated at first of September; by September 30, 63 of the 100 brand-name queries had an AI Overview, in contrast with simply 5 amongst 98 usable outcomes on the July 1 checkpoint.

Extra importantly, of the 63 AI Overviews in our pattern, 48 appeared in place one (76.2%), with a median place of 1.49.

It’s doable that Google will select to maneuver these AI Overviews decrease within the SERP, however from our current analysis, it appears that evidently they largely inhabit the highest rating spot for a model’s key phrase—as a substitute of the model’s personal web site.

Maybe the best danger of AI Overviews triggering for branded queries is directing customers to unofficial sources of knowledge or, within the worst case, competing manufacturers.

In our identical panel of 100 manufacturers, most exterior citations (from web sites apart from the model queried) linked to Wikipedia, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Wikipedia is, a minimum of, a reasonably impartial supply of knowledge for many manufacturers, and it leads the pack at virtually 72% of exterior citations. YouTube and LinkedIn are each platforms that make it a lot more durable for manufacturers to affect and management the narrative—actually a lot, a lot more durable than owned pages on owned domains.

This is an instance of YouTube being closely cited in an AI Overview for Bluehost:

There may be some small excellent news. Of these AI Overviews the place we might see the complete AI Overview textual content, solely two of 58 solutions (3.4%) explicitly mentioned rivals: Pepsi’s reply named Coca-Cola in its description of the “cola wars”, whereas Intel’s named TSMC and NVIDIA.

And citations within the AI Overviews, just one verified competitor-owned web site appeared throughout 57 out there supply lists. It appears these AI Overviews are a minimum of sensible sufficient to keep away from sourcing data from competing manufacturers.

As a substitute, as Chris Lengthy defined on LinkedIn, “rivals/exterior sources can now management the narrative of your model immediately within the search outcomes.”Ann Smarty raised the same concern about movies cited within the solutions, noting that they weren’t from the model’s official account and “could very effectively embody outdated product data.”

Google routinely adjustments the looks and triggers of AI Overviews, and there isn’t any assure that the state of affairs we’ve proven right here will stay; nonetheless, Google appears hell-bent on inserting AI Overviews into any SERP that can tolerate them, so I believe we must take care of AI Overviews showing on branded queries for the foreseeable future.

To see which branded key phrases set off an AI Overview to your web site, head to Web site Explorer and click on the Natural Key phrases report. Within the Intents drop-down menu, choose Branded Key phrases. Then click on Add Filter, choose SERP options, and click on AI Overviews.

Click on “Present Outcomes”, and also you’ll see a listing of all of the branded key phrases that your area ranks for that additionally include an AI Overview within the search outcomes (like, on this instance, Bluehost’s model identify and login pages).

If you would like to discover the contents of those AI Overviews to see whether or not rivals are talked about and which domains are cited, head to Model Radar. Enter your model, and we’ll routinely recommend related rivals and competing domains to trace.

Head to the AI responses report and filter outcomes to see the AI Overviews the place your model is talked about:

Click on Apply, and you will be proven a listing of AI Overviews and their contents, together with the manufacturers and domains which are talked about and cited inside them.