New analysis from BrightEdge exhibits that whereas AI Overviews (AIO) has expanded its protection since launch, it surprisingly doesn’t characterize an entire shift away from conventional natural search outcomes, as simply over half of queries proceed to set off traditional search outcomes.
AIO Grows 52% In One 12 months
A twelve-month comparability from February 2025 to February 2026 exhibits that AI Overviews (AIO) protection grew by a whopping 58%. The training sector skilled the strongest enlargement in the variety of queries triggering AI search outcomes, from 18% of queries in Might 2025 to 83% of queries triggering AI search outcomes by December 2025.
Equally, B2B know-how queries skilled a large enlargement of queries that triggered AI search outcomes, rising from 36% to 82%. Certainly one of the strongest rising sectors for AI search outcomes is eating places, rising from 10% of queries to 78% of queries triggering AI search outcomes.
In the meantime, healthcare queries have been already triggering AIO outcomes by a big margin since 2024, at a charge of 72% of the time. By December 2025, nevertheless, the charge at which healthcare queries triggered AIO edged up to 88%, which is a rare quantity of AI search outcomes. On condition that AIO is stated to be pushed by person satisfaction metrics, this will imply that customers are appreciating having an AI clarify healthcare-related subjects in a conversational format.
These outcomes observe with a report revealed by OpenAI in January 2026 that confirmed over 5% of all chats are healthcare-related and that 25% of weekly lively customers globally search ChatGPT with health-related questions.
It’s not simply sufferers who are utilizing AI for well being associated questions. In accordance to a current Brookings Establishment survey, 53% of healthcare professionals use AI.
The 9 industries experiencing the most enlargement are:
- Healthcare
- B2B Tech
- Schooling
- Insurance coverage
- Leisure
- Journey
- eCommerce
- Finance
- Eating places
Natural Search Holds A Slim Majority
But regardless of these excessive development numbers, traditional search outcomes are nonetheless showing at a charge of 52% of all queries, that means that AI and traditional search are virtually at a good quantity. But clearly, a lot of the high-value queries in sectors akin to B2B are transferring away from traditional search and exhibiting up extra incessantly in AI search.
In a method, that’s perhaps not so shocking as a result of know-how is in a relentless state of change, and there’s at all times one thing new to be understood, one thing that is arguably extra satisfactorily served in a conversational method moderately than ten blue hyperlinks, like with healthcare.
But the development outcomes for eating places, what explains that? Is it research-driven? In that case, then that will point out a content material hole that reviewers or eating places might have to fill.
However, just a little greater than half of search queries nonetheless return a normal outcomes web page composed solely of ten blue hyperlinks. AI Overviews now set off on almost half of all tracked queries, however that development has not eradicated the conventional SERP.
Search Is Multifactor
Search might be stated to function in two distinct modes relying on the question. Some outcomes pages start with an AI-generated abstract. Many others current solely ranked hyperlinks. The takeaway is clear: AI Overviews are widespread, however search stays divided moderately than absolutely remodeled.
This splitting of search is a part of an extended, extra established pattern of the previous twenty years since Google launched native search, Google Maps, and product search. Since the early 2000s, the traditional ten blue hyperlinks have been extra nostalgia than actuality, but it surely solely hit house for the search engine optimization group with the introduction of Featured Snippets in 2014, which made it clear that solutions have been a precedence at Google and that the ten blue hyperlinks have been now definitively a factor of the previous.
The truth that AI search and traditional search are virtually evenly divided amongst key phrases utilized by Google’s customers is a part of that ongoing pattern of a relentless evolution to solutions.
AI Overviews Reshapes The Search Expertise
AI Overviews does not seem on each question. However when it does seem, it adjustments the construction of the outcomes web page in a measurable method that is laborious not to discover as a result of it is typically in the kind of a giant content material block positioned above conventional listings.
The report finds that the common AI Overviews exceeds 1,200 pixels in peak. A regular desktop viewport measures roughly 900 pixels. The primary natural consequence sits fully beneath the fold. AI Overviews can dominate the structure visually, occupying greater than the complete seen display screen before a person scrolls.
AI Overviews does not seem on each question, however when it does, it occupies a big portion of the display screen and pushes conventional search outcomes additional down the web page. The takeaway is that customers are turning into conditioned to conversational information discovery, and the paradigm of search is turning into extra about solutions and discovery.
AI Overviews Does Not Mirror Web page One Rankings
A key measured distinction seems in how AI Overviews selects sources. Conventional search outcomes are ordered by rating place. AI Overviews synthesize information and cite sources that usually differ from the prime natural listings.
This is due to the impact of Google’s FastSearch, a way of retrieving the prime 3 natural search outcomes for a number of queries in response to one conversational question after which utilizing these FastSearch natural outcomes to create a solution.
The report unveils this phenomenon, exhibiting that solely about 17 p.c of sources cited in AI Overviews additionally rank in the natural prime 10. The report explains,
“Rating primary organically does not robotically get you cited in the AIO. And not rating on web page one does not imply you are excluded from AIO citations both. The 2 experiences are related, however they are not the identical factor.”
AI Overviews’ citations are anchored in listed content material, however they do not mirror page-one search outcomes. This circles again to FastSearch and Question-Fanout, the place one basically long-tail conversational question will set off a number of queries, with every question leading to three natural search outcomes.
Overlap, nevertheless, will increase when wanting throughout the prime 100 outcomes moderately than simply the prime 10. That broader alignment has grown modestly over time. AI Overviews attracts from the natural ecosystem, however they cite content material that incessantly differs from conventional natural search winners. What this implies is that AIO visibility relates to natural efficiency with out being interchangeable with page-one rating.
This is one thing that wants to be investigated extra intently when it comes to what it means for content material creation and rating.
Development Continues Alongside Ongoing Reliance On Natural
BrightEdge’s report exhibits continued enlargement of AIO moderately than stabilization. AI Overviews presence has risen 58 p.c yr over yr and is now approaching half of all tracked queries.
Broader quotation overlap throughout the prime 100 outcomes has elevated modestly, whereas prime 10 overlap has remained largely flat.
The findings do not describe a binary shift from natural search to AI search, however they do present development. Conventional natural outcomes characterize a slim majority of queries. What I’d like to see in the future is what sorts of queries are nonetheless triggering traditional search? Are they native or navigational queries?
Whereas AI Overviews expands in frequency and visually dominates the person interface the place deployed, traditional search is now dramatically diminished.
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