Google AI Overviews Study: 71% of 1,000 US Keywords Show One. Here's Who Gets Cited
We pulled Google results for 1,000 US keywords across 20 industries. 71.4% showed an AI Overview, 84.6% of informational queries did, and only 46% of cited domains also ranked in the top 10. YouTube appears in over half of AI Overview citations. Full data included.
We pulled Google results for 1,000 US keywords across 20 industries. 71.4% showed an AI Overview, 84.6% of informational queries did, and only 46% of cited domains also ranked in the top 10. YouTube appears in over half of AI Overview citations. Full data included.
Google's AI Overviews answer the query at the top of the page and list their sources alongside. For SEOs, two questions matter: which keywords trigger one, and do they cite the pages that rank?
On 28 September 2026 we pulled Google desktop results for 1,000 US English keywords (997 succeeded) across 20 industries, grouped by search intent.
Key findings
- 712 of 997 keywords (71.4%) showed an AI Overview; 77.7% of those sat at the very top of the page.
- Informational keywords triggered one most often (84.6%), navigational ones least (54.5%).
- The long tail is hit hardest: 79.6% of keywords with 100-999 monthly searches showed an AI Overview, against 61.3% of those with 10,000+.
- Industries differ sharply: software, mortgages and B2B were near 100%; legal, local services and fashion were around 30%.
- An AI Overview cites 5 different sites (median). Only 46.1% of cited domains also ranked in the top 10 for the same query.
- 82.4% of AI Overviews cited at least one top-10 domain, but only 56.1% cited the #1 result.
- YouTube appeared in 53.3% of AI Overview citations while ranking in the top 10 for only 21.6% of keywords. Reddit was cited in 24.4%.
- 21.6% of AI Overviews linked back to Google's own search pages; we did not count those as sources.
By search intent
| Intent | Keywords | Shows AI Overview |
|---|---|---|
| Informational | 299 | 84.6% |
| Commercial | 286 | 77.3% |
| Transactional | 225 | 60.4% |
| Navigational | 187 | 54.5% |
By industry
50 keywords per industry; a selection is shown.
| Industry | Shows AI Overview |
|---|---|
| Software | 100% |
| Real estate | 100% |
| B2B (CRM etc.) | 98% |
| Parenting | 95.9% |
| Education | 94% |
| Health | 90% |
| Finance | 88% |
| E-commerce | 78% |
| Electronics | 76% |
| Travel | 58% |
| Food | 58% |
| Auto | 56% |
| Legal | 32% |
| Local services | 32% |
| Fashion | 30.6% |
Who gets cited most
"Cited" is the share of the 681 AI Overviews with sources that cite the site; "Top 10" is the share of all 997 keywords where the site ranks in the organic top 10.
| Site | Cited in AI Overviews | Ranks in top 10 |
|---|---|---|
| youtube.com | 53.3% | 21.6% |
| reddit.com | 24.4% | 45.3% |
| facebook.com | 11.2% | 22.0% |
| bankrate.com | 6.6% | 3.0% |
| instagram.com | 6.5% | 10.5% |
| en.wikipedia.org | 6.3% | 5.8% |
| amazon.com | 4.6% | 13.4% |
| nerdwallet.com | 4.1% | 1.5% |
Two patterns stand out. YouTube is cited far more often than it ranks. Reddit is the reverse: it often ranks in the top 10 but is cited about half as often. Finance publishers (Bankrate, NerdWallet) are also cited more than their ranking footprint in the sample would suggest.
What it means for SEO
- Ranking #1 does not guarantee a citation: nearly half of AI Overviews skip the #1 result. Make pages easy to quote, with a direct answer up front, clear subheadings and lists.
- Video is an under-used way in: a YouTube video on the same topic noticeably raises the chance of being cited.
- Long-tail informational queries are the most affected. If your traffic depends on them, expect lower click-through and put conversion effort into the pages that still earn visits.
- To see whether your own keywords show an AI Overview and whom it cites, query live Google results with the CallAI SEO suite.
Methodology and limits
- Keywords: seed terms for 20 industries were expanded with DataForSEO Labs (monthly volume ≥ 100); 50 per industry were drawn round-robin across search intents. 1,000 in total, 997 fetched.
- Results: DataForSEO SERP API, United States, English, desktop, top 10 organic results with the AI Overview loaded, 28 September 2026.
- This is a sample of expanded keywords, not a random sample of all searches. It likely over-represents long-tail and question-style queries, so the overall rate may be higher than in other studies.
- AI Overviews vary by time, location, device and user; this is a single snapshot.
- Links to google.com (follow-up searches, Google Flights) are not counted as sources.