Google is hardly showing AI Overviews anymore – have you been seeing them? [Poll]

Ben Schoon | Jul 15 2024 - 3:35 pm PT

AI Overviews are continuing to show up less and less in Google Search, with a new report finding they’re appearing in less than 10% of search queries.

It’s been just over two months since Google launched AI Overviews for all search users in the US, and the fallout from that has been rough… for Google. While many feared that AI Overviews would draw significant portions of the internet away from individual websites, massive and viral errors produced by AI Overviews led to Google seemingly deciding to scale back the project in major ways.

Data published in early June revealed that Google had gone from showing AI Overviews in over 80% of searches for preview testers down to around 40-50% when the feature first launched widely in May, down to a mere 15% in the weeks following viral mistakes such as putting glue on pizza.

Now, updated figures reveal Google may have toned things back even further.

SearchEngineLand reports, again with data from BrightEdge, that Google is only showing AI Overviews in around 7% of searches as of late June. That’s down from 11% at the start of the month.

Breaking that down, the report claims that AI Overviews are showing up in half as many searches related to education questions (from 26% down to 13%), just 9% of e-commerce queries (down from 26%), and in “nearly 0%” of entertainment-related questions (down from 14%). Following viral mistakes that stemmed largely from Reddit, AI Overviews also appear to be sourcing Reddit far less frequently in their answers.

Anecdotally, we’ve similarly noticed that AI Overviews are hardly showing up anymore. It’s only on rare occasions that they pop up, and even in places where they used to. Previously, we noted that AI Overviews most frequently appeared in queries that were phrased as a direct question. But, now, even straightforward questions such as “is the pixel watch waterproof?” result in Google showing a Featured Snippet and links rather than an AI-generated answer.

What about you? Have you been seeing AI Overviews lately? Vote in the poll below and let us know in the comments if you prefer Search with or without AI Overviews.