What is AI overview?

AI Overview is a search feature that uses artificial intelligence to generate a short, synthesized answer at the top of a search results page. Instead of only listing blue links, AI Overview pulls information from multiple sources and presents it in a concise snapshot for the user.

For marketers and growth-focused businesses, AI Overview changes how people discover and evaluate brands online. It can bypass traditional positions in the search results, highlight different pages than classic organic rankings, and influence which websites users click first. Understanding AI Overview is now part of modern SEO strategy, not a side topic.

How AI overview works in search

In practice, AI Overview uses large language models to read and combine content from across the web. It then displays a short explanation, often with supporting links to the sources it used. Each AI Overview focuses on answering a specific question or task clearly and quickly.

This means Google is not just ranking pages any more, it is also rewriting the way answers are shown. Websites with strong technical SEO, clear topical coverage, and trustworthy content have a better chance to be cited inside an AI Overview, even if they are not always rank one in classic results.

Why AI overview matters for SEO and growth

AI Overview can reduce clicks on standard organic listings for some queries, especially informational ones. For B2B and e-commerce companies, this affects how prospects move from search to your site, how they compare vendors, and which brands they trust early in the journey.

  • It reshapes click-through rates across the results page, not just the top three positions.
  • It rewards sites with strong topical authority and clear, structured answers.
  • It increases the value of high quality, expert-written content over thin pages.
  • It makes technical SEO and clean markup more important for being correctly understood.
  • It favors brands that cover a topic in depth, instead of chasing random keywords.

Viewed together, these shifts mean AI Overview is not just a UI tweak, it is a structural change in how organic visibility and brand discovery work.

How to optimise for AI overview

To appear in or benefit from AI Overview, you still need solid fundamentals. That starts with a clean technical base, strong on-page optimisation, and content that actually answers user intent. A specialist partner like 6th Man can help you align your SEO services and strategy with this new reality.

On the content side, building topical authority around key themes increases your chance of being quoted by AI systems. That means writing clear, expert-level content that is tightly focused on the problems your buyers are trying to solve, and keeping it up to date.

For ongoing optimisation, tracking how your pages surface in AI-influenced search results and spotting technical issues quickly is crucial. Tools like the 6th Man SEO extension and the insights in our SEO blog help teams react fast, test changes, and protect visibility as AI Overview continues to evolve.