Being cited in a Google AI Overview is much better than not being cited, but it doesn’t bring your clicks back to where they were before AI Overviews. In Seer Interactive’s 2025 data, cited brands earned about 2.2 times the clicks of uncited brands per million impressions, yet still about 38% fewer than results on searches with no AI Overview at all.
That’s the second finding of Beyond Rankings, our review of 36 studies on search and AI visibility. It changes what you should expect from an AI SEO program, and how you should report on it.
What Did the Research Measure?
Seer Interactive’s 2026 study is the only large dataset that separates three groups of searches:
- searches with no AI Overview;
- searches where the brand is cited in the AI Overview;
- searches where the AI Overview appears but the brand is not cited.
It covers 53 brands, 5.47 million queries and 2.43 billion organic impressions from January 2025 to February 2026.
Three patterns stand out:
- Cited beat uncited in every month of 2025. The gap ranged from about 1.2 times in November to about 3.9 times in September.
- Neither group matched the no-AI-Overview baseline for most of the year. From April onward, searches with no AI Overview had a higher click-through rate than cited brands every month.
- The cited advantage narrowed late in 2025. Click-through rate for cited brands fell from 2.52% in September to 0.76% in November.
How Many Clicks Does a Citation Actually Win?
Averaged over 2025, the difference is easier to see in clicks per million informational impressions:
| Situation | Organic clicks per million impressions |
|---|---|
| No AI Overview | About 33,500 |
| AI Overview, brand cited | About 20,743 |
| AI Overview, brand not cited | About 9,445 |
A citation more than doubles your clicks compared with being left out. It still leaves you roughly 38% below the level you’d earn if no AI Overview appeared.
Why Doesn’t a Citation Restore Clicks?
Because people rarely click the links inside AI summaries. In Pew Research Center’s panel of 900 US adults, people clicked a link inside an AI summary on just 1% of visits. In the randomized experiment by Agarwal and Sen, removing an AI Overview placed at the top of the page raised clicks by 88%, while AI Overviews placed lower had no measurable effect.
Most of the benefit of a citation is probably indirect. A cited brand gains recognition and trust, and people then click its ordinary listing.
There’s one important caution. Higher-authority brands are also more likely to be cited, so the cited group may perform better partly because of who is in it, not only because of the citation.
What Should You Do With This?
- Treat AI citations as defensive. A citation protects your share of a shrinking pool of clicks. It doesn’t grow the pool.
- Don’t promise, or accept, “recovery” from citations alone. Judge an AI SEO program by whether it keeps you ahead of uncited competitors, and by leads, not by a return to old traffic levels.
- Look at paid search too. In Seer’s data, paid click-through rate on searches with no AI Overview fell from about 26% to 21.8% over 2025, while paid click-through rate on AI Overview searches rose. If your organic clicks on informational queries are shrinking, check whether your Google Ads strategy should adapt.
- Put more effort into pages where people act. Service, booking and pricing pages are far less exposed than simple answer content.
Check Whether You’re Cited for Your Customers’ Questions
You can’t defend a position you can’t see. FamaCue takes the real questions your customers ask, checks Google’s AI Overview and asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity the same questions, then shows which sites each one cites. You’ll see where you’re cited, where a competitor is cited instead, and which questions no page on your site answers yet. Try it free for 7 days, no card needed.
See who AI cites for your questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Does being cited in an AI Overview increase clicks?
Compared with not being cited, yes. In Seer Interactive’s 2025 data, cited brands earned about 2.2 times the clicks of uncited brands per million impressions.
Does a citation bring clicks back to pre-AI levels?
No. Cited brands still earned about 38% fewer clicks than results on searches with no AI Overview.
How often do people click links inside AI summaries?
Rarely. Pew Research Center found people clicked a link inside an AI summary on about 1% of visits.
Should I still try to get cited in AI Overviews?
Yes, but as a defense. A citation protects your share against uncited competitors; it doesn’t replace the clicks AI Overviews take.
Sources
- Kimachia, K. (2026). Beyond Rankings. Bona Fama Digital. Finding 2.
- McDonald, T., Cooley, H., & Williams, M. (2026). AIO impact on Google CTR: 2026 update. Seer Interactive.
- Chapekis, A., & Lieb, A. (2025). Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears. Pew Research Center.
- Rijo, L. (2026). AI Overviews cut publisher clicks 39.8% in first randomized study. PPC Land (reporting Agarwal & Sen, 2026).