Toronto SEO
Content & Keywords

Do AI Overviews reduce click-through rates?

Updated April 22, 2026
Quick Answer

Yes, materially — but the impact depends heavily on query type. In our engagements, informational query clusters where AI Overviews now show have lost 20–60% of organic clicks even when ranking positions held. Commercial-intent and transactional queries (best, vs, pricing, near me) have lost only 0–15%. Branded queries are largely unaffected. The strategic implication is to rebalance content investment toward AIO-resistant query types rather than try to rewrite your way out of informational-query CTR loss.

Which queries lose the most

Pure informational queries — "what is", "how does", "why" — lose the most because AIO answers them at the top of the SERP and the user often does not need to click. These have absorbed the heaviest CTR compression in 2025–2026.

Queries with strong commercial intent (best, vs, alternatives, reviews, pricing) trigger AIO less often and convert through to organic clicks at higher rates because the user is in evaluation mode and wants to compare sources.

What to do about it

First, diagnose your own data: in Search Console, segment top queries by impressions-held-clicks-fell vs both-fell. The former is AIO impact; the latter is ranking loss. Treat them with different strategies.

Second, rebalance the content roadmap toward commercial and bottom-funnel content. Pre-AIO, 30–40% commercial-intent content was typical; in 2026 we recommend 60–70% as a recovery posture for affected sites.

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