Google’s AI Overviews are causing a 50% drop in organic CTR

Although Google has promised on several occasions that the deployment of its AI Overviews would not negatively affect website traffic, it appears that in practice, this is not the case. While the presence of Google-generated AI views has increased to appear in 16% of searches, the click-through rate or CTR has decreased by 50%.

This was explained by Jim Yu, founder and CEO of the SEO platform BrightEdge, through a post on Twitter.

2/3 @brightedge‘s data shows that AI Overviews now appear in 16% of queries, the highest since launch. As Google refines AIOs, they are reshaping search behavior, with a ~50% drop in clickthrough rates when AIOs are present.

— Jim Yu (@jimyu) March 25, 2025

Impressions increase, but clicks decline

Another relevant point regarding the evolution of AI Overviews is the fact that from March 1, 2025, to March 15 of the same month, the dimensions of these views increased by 18.26%. This implies that the AI Overviews have come to occupy a larger portion of the screen, in some cases occupying it entirely.

When analyzing this expansion by sectors, it is observed that the on-screen size of the AI Overviews has experienced a massive increase in searches related to travel (39.49%) and B2B technology (37.13%).

Likewise, the fact that Google’s AI views have greater prominence on the screen causes the impressions of the sources they select to increase. However, as we mentioned earlier, the organic CTR falls, as users read the information in the results view and leave without clicking on the links.

3/4 ⚠️ THE AI OVERVIEW PARADOX: As these features expand, your metrics tell TWO different stories! Impressions UP but click-through rates DOWN as users get answers without clicking. The traditional traffic measurement playbook is going to CHANGE! 📉 #SearchAnalytics #AIImpact pic.twitter.com/ZqdvQd5ttz

— Jim Yu (@jimyu) March 19, 2025

In addition, it is important to highlight that Google has started linking to itself in its AI Overviews. This means that when you click on some of their links, you will be redirected to a Google search results page. In this way, the search engine itself becomes one of your competitors in the race to secure a spot among its sources in the AI Overviews.

AI Overviews link pages not ranked in the top 10 search results

Regarding which pages the search engine includes in its AI-generated views, there are also new developments. According to data from BrightEdge, since the March 2025 core update, it has been noted that AI Overviews cite fewer pages ranked among the top 10 organic positions in the search results.

Specifically, the match between Google’s top 10 organic results and the citations in the AI Overviews has decreased from 16% to 15% following the core update. However, this general decline does not occur in some key sectors.

For example, in the travel sector, it went from a 12.9% match to 19.5%; in entertainment, for searches related to movies, the match grew from 8.8% to 13.7%; and in the restaurant sector, there was an increase from 9.5% to 14.1% in the match for content about gastronomy.

While this represents an opportunity for those sites that do not occupy the top 10 spots on Google’s search results page, considering the importance the search engine is giving to its AI Overviews, even increasing the dimensions of the space it designates on the screen, this is a significant blow for those pages that have worked and refined their SEO to be rewarded with one of the top organic positions.

This new SEO reality requires revising current strategies and increasing efforts when monitoring, so that, as Yu mentions, «optimize clicks where they matter, ensuring your content drives the AI conversation even when users do not click».

Photo: GPT-4o