How AI Overviews Are Changing PPC Click-Through Rates

Let’s walk through what’s actually happening, what we know with reasonable confidence, what’s still unclear, and what you should be doing differently as a result.

What AI Overviews Actually Are

AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that appear near the top of Google’s search results for many queries, synthesizing information from multiple sources into a direct answer. Instead of scrolling through ten blue links to piece together an answer yourself, Google gives you a paragraph or two upfront, often with a few source links attached, and you can choose to dig deeper or move on.

They tend to show up most often for informational queries: “how does X work,” “what causes Y,” “best way to do Z.” They’re less consistently present for highly transactional or local queries, though that continues to evolve as Google expands where these summaries appear.

How They’re Compressing Organic Click-Through Rates

The logical effect of putting a complete answer directly on the results page is that fewer people need to click through to a website to get that answer. If someone’s question is fully satisfied by the AI Overview summary, there’s no reason for them to visit your blog post, even if your content was the source the summary pulled from.

This pattern, often called “zero-click search,” isn’t new. Featured snippets and knowledge panels have been reducing click-through for years. AI Overviews extend that same dynamic, but with more comprehensive, multi-source answers that can satisfy a wider range of query types.

The honest caveat here: the exact magnitude of this effect varies a lot by industry, query type, and how AI Overviews are rolled out in a given market, and the data is still evolving as Google continues to adjust where and how often these summaries appear. Be skeptical of anyone citing a single universal percentage drop in organic CTR. The real pattern is directionally clear (informational query clicks are getting harder to earn) but the specific numbers depend heavily on your niche.

Why Paid Ads Remain Relatively Protected

Here’s the part that matters most if you’re running Google Ads: paid results continue to appear above and around AI Overviews for a meaningful share of queries, particularly ones with clear commercial or transactional intent. When someone searches “buy running shoes online” or “emergency plumber near me,” Google still shows ads prominently, because that’s a moment where the user is closer to taking an action, not just seeking information.

There’s a structural reason for this. AI Overviews are built to answer questions, and purely commercial queries with buying intent aren’t really “questions” in the same sense. Someone searching for a product to purchase or a service to book isn’t looking for a synthesized explanation, they’re looking for options they can act on immediately. That’s exactly the space paid search has always been strongest in, and it’s a large part of why PPC hasn’t seen the same erosion that organic informational content has.

This is also consistent with a broader pattern we’ve seen for years: Google Ads tends to perform best for businesses with clear, action-oriented buyer intent, and that dynamic hasn’t changed just because AI Overviews exist. If anything, the gap between “informational query, likely to get AI-summarized” and “commercial query, likely to show ads” has become more pronounced.

What the Trends Suggest So Far

A few honest, non-speculative observations based on how AI Overviews have rolled out:

• Informational content is under more pressure than commercial content. Blog posts, guides, and how-to content aimed at answering a question directly are more exposed to CTR erosion than product or service pages built around a purchase decision.
• The rollout isn’t uniform. AI Overviews don’t appear for every query, and their presence varies by topic, market, and over time as Google continues testing and adjusting.
• Paid placement above AI Overviews isn’t guaranteed forever. Google has experimented with different layouts, and there’s no certainty that ads will always sit in the exact same position relative to AI Overviews as they do today. This is a genuinely evolving part of the search results page.
• User behavior is still adapting too. Some users have started treating AI Overviews as a first-pass filter before deciding whether to click deeper, which could mean the users who do click through are further along in their decision process, potentially a higher-intent audience even from an organic click.

That last point cuts both ways and is worth sitting with. Fewer total organic clicks isn’t automatically a worse outcome if the clicks that remain are higher quality. We don’t have enough consistent data yet to say that confidently across the board, but it’s a reasonable hypothesis worth testing against your own analytics rather than assuming the worst.

What Advertisers Should Actually Do Differently

Given all of the above, here’s the practical shift in strategy that makes sense right now.

Lean into commercial and transactional keywords. If your account has a mix of informational and commercial keyword targeting, the commercial side is where your budget is more protected from AI Overview disruption. This doesn’t mean abandon informational campaigns entirely, especially if they’re driving qualified leads, but it does mean commercial intent keywords deserve a larger share of scrutiny and investment going forward.

Expect and plan for informational query CTR erosion. If part of your PPC strategy still targets broader informational search terms, build in the expectation that organic-adjacent informational traffic is going to get harder to earn over time, and that paid competition for those same terms may shift as advertisers adjust their strategies in response.

Watch your impression share and CTR trends closely, not just conversions. A drop in impression share or a shift in CTR on certain keyword categories can be an early signal that AI Overviews are affecting how your ads are displayed or how users are interacting with the results page for those queries. Reviewing this data regularly, rather than only checking conversion numbers, gives you an earlier warning system. This is part of the reason regular PPC account monitoring matters so much: a good account manager should be catching these shifts before they show up as a revenue problem.

Reassess your keyword mix periodically, not just once. Because this landscape keeps shifting, a keyword strategy that made sense six months ago might need adjusting now. Treat AI Overview rollout as an ongoing variable in your account, not a one-time change you adapt to and forget about.

Don’t panic-cut budget based on headlines. A lot of noisy commentary exists about AI Overviews “killing search traffic.” Some of it is directionally accurate, much of it overstates the certainty of the numbers involved. Look at your own account’s data before making significant budget decisions based on industry-wide claims that may not reflect your specific market or query mix.

How This Affects Different Types of Businesses Differently

The impact of AI Overviews isn’t uniform across industries, and it’s worth thinking through where your business likely sits on that spectrum.

Local service businesses searching for things like emergency plumber or best dentist near me tend to carry strong commercial and local intent, which keeps them relatively insulated. These queries are less likely to be fully satisfied by a generic AI summary, since the user usually needs a specific business to contact, not just an explanation. If you’re running campaigns in this space, the fundamentals we outline in our guide to Google Ads for local businesses remain just as relevant now as before AI Overviews existed.

Ecommerce brands see a mixed picture. Product research queries such as best running shoes for flat feet are increasingly likely to get an AI Overview treatment, while direct purchase queries like buy Nike Air Zoom remain firmly commercial and ad friendly. This makes keyword segmentation more important than ever for ecommerce accounts.

SaaS companies often rely heavily on informational and comparison content to drive top of funnel awareness, which is exactly the content category most exposed to AI Overview compression. That doesn’t mean abandon content marketing, but it does mean the paid side of a SaaS acquisition strategy carries relatively more weight than it used to, particularly for trial signup campaigns targeting people already close to a decision.

Law firms, already used to operating in a high cost per click, high intent environment, are likely to see less disruption from AI Overviews on their core commercial terms, since legal service queries with clear intent, like car accident lawyer near me, remain squarely in the zone where paid ads dominate. The category context we cover in our guide to Google Ads for law firms still holds up well in this shifting environment.

The Bottom Line

AI Overviews are genuinely changing how people interact with search results, and organic click-through rates for informational content are feeling real pressure. Paid search, especially for commercial and transactional intent, remains comparatively insulated for now, though nothing about this landscape is guaranteed to stay static.

The businesses handling this well aren’t the ones panicking or ignoring it. They’re the ones actively watching their account data, shifting budget toward the intent categories that remain protected, and treating this as an ongoing adjustment rather than a one-time fix.

If you want a clear-eyed look at how your own account’s impression share, CTR, and keyword mix are trending in this shifting landscape, request a PPC audit and we’ll show you exactly where your budget stands and what to adjust.