How Often Do AI Overviews Appear in 2026? The Numbers by Query Type

In October 2026, AI Overviews appear on most Google searches. Three trackers cited by Search Engine Roundtable on 26 October put the share above 80%, up from about 50% in June 2025 and about 15% the year before. The exact figure depends on which searches are counted, so the useful number for a brand is the one for its own query type.

The share by query type

Commercial searches doubled in a year

Google kept AI Overviews off most shopping and comparison searches through 2025. Semrush tracked 400 commercial keywords across banking, ecommerce and software every month from September 2025. Coverage went from 45.75% to 88% in August 2026. These are the searches a buyer makes while choosing between options: "best CRM for a small team", "Brand A vs Brand B", "pricing". The answer at the top of the page now names brands before any blue link does.

Branded searches went from rare to routine

A search for a brand name used to return the brand's own site and little else. Ahrefs measured an AI Overview on 13.1% of branded queries in a November 2025 study, with a different sample, and on 82.91% of US desktop branded results on 29 September 2026. For a buyer who searches your name before they call, the first thing they read is now a summary of what the web says about you, reviews and complaints included, written by Google.

More of the answer links out

On 15 October 2026 Google said it has made "continued and substantial increases to the presence of inline links" in AI Overviews and AI Mode, and that it is showing those links higher up in responses. It also expanded the news carousels inside its AI features to more locations and languages. More sentences in the answer carry a citation, so being one of the cited pages is worth more than it was when the panel was a closed paragraph. Search Console still reports impressions for these surfaces and no clicks.

Where the share is lower

The seoClarity range shows the spread: some industries see AI Overviews on just over half their queries, others on more than four in five. The studies above use US data. Coverage outside the US moves in the same direction, and each market's share is best read from your own Search Console data.

How to measure your own share

• Search Console. The Generative AI features report counts the impressions your pages earned inside AI Overviews and AI Mode. It reports impressions only.

• A fixed set of buyer questions. Twenty to thirty questions your customers actually ask, run on a schedule in Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude, recording whether your brand is named and which pages are cited. An AI visibility platform automates this; a spreadsheet and an hour a month also work.

• Your own branded search. Search your brand name, your brand plus "reviews", and your brand against your main competitor. Read what the AI Overview says, and check which pages it cites.

What it means for your brand

When four searches in five open with a generated answer, the question shifts from ranking on page one to being named in the answer. The levers are the ones that earn citations across AI search: pages that answer one question each in their first paragraph, facts stated plainly enough to be quoted, consistent brand information across the web, and presence on the third-party reviews, comparisons and directories the answers cite.

Run a free AI visibility audit to see which brands AI names for your buyers' questions today.