What Marketers Must Know About AI Driven Search
10/23/2025
Marketers See Early CTR Drops as Google’s AI Overviews Roll Out
As Google continues to expand its AI Overviews and AI Mode, marketers are beginning to see measurable changes in how users interact with search results — and the numbers aren’t subtle. Multiple independent studies show organic clicks are down where these AI summaries appear, though not all queries are equally affected.
CTR Is Falling When AI Overviews Appear
A March 2025 study from Ahrefs analyzed more than 25,000 search queries and found that when an AI Overview was displayed, the average click-through rate (CTR) for the top organic result dropped from roughly 5.6% to 3.1% — about a 35% decline.
That pattern aligns with similar findings from Amsive, which reported an average 15% CTR decrease for tracked keywords featuring AI summaries.
And a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. search users found that people who encountered AI summaries clicked through to external sites in only 8% of searches, compared with 15% when no AI block appeared.
In other words, the top blue links are still there, but users are less incentivized to actually click them.
Not Every Query is Impacted the Same
The drop-off isn’t uniform. Informational and educational queries are showing the largest declines, while high-intent and branded searches appear largely stable. Agency data from Adapt Worldwide suggests AI Overviews appear in about 84% of informational searches but less than 5% of transactional ones.
That means marketers focused on “what is …” or “how to …” content are most exposed to some extreme volatility, while e-commerce or local intent content continues to perform relatively normally.
Google’s Official Position: “Links Still Matter”
Google has acknowledged the traffic shifts but insists AI features are additive, not replacements.
In a May 2025 blog post, Google wrote that “AI Overviews highlight helpful information and continue to include clear links to websites that support those answers.”
Google has also confirmed that Search Console reporting for AI Mode visibility is “coming soon,” but separate tracking for AI Overview impressions and clicks is not yet available. Until then, marketers are relying on proxies like branded search volume and entity mentions to gauge exposure.
Marketers Adjusting Strategies
Because much of the lost traffic comes from top-of-funnel informational content, SEOs are shifting emphasis toward authority signals, structured data, and freshness.
“Sites that clearly communicate expertise, update frequently, and use schema markup are more likely to surface in or near AI Overviews,” noted a May 2025 report from Dentsu following Google I/O.
Some publishers are also tracking how often their brand or domain appears within AI Overview citations — a new metric quickly gaining attention inside enterprise SEO dashboards.
What’s Still Unclear
Researchers emphasize that these findings are correlational, not causal. Other layout changes and user-interface tests may influence CTR. And while data points toward reduced clicks, overall search demand has not fallen; users are simply consuming more information directly on the results page.
The long-term impact on publishers and organic discovery remains under review. For now, the consensus is that AI Overviews primarily affect non-branded, educational queries — and that optimization for clarity, authority, and structure remains the best hedge.
Bottom Line
The AI era of Google Search is here, and early analytics show measurable declines in click-through for many informational results. Marketers who rely on organic traffic from those queries should be watching their analytics closely, structuring content for readability and credibility, and preparing for a search environment where being cited may matter as much as being clicked.