Technology / Wed, 05 Jun 2024 9to5Google

Google seems to be showing AI Overviews much less frequently, data suggests

AI Overviews in Google Search, as Google itself said, are a feature of Search and will appear going forward when the system decides they might be useful, whether you want them or not. Roughly a week after AI Overviews were made widely available, though, mistakes made by the AI were quickly made viral. Google defended AI Overviews on multiple occasions afterward, but also said it would take “swift action” on some of the dangerous replies. Now, data from BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO platform, suggests Google may have also toned back AI Overviews in Search to a considerable extent. Shared with Search Engine Land, this new data suggests that Google is only showing AI Overviews in around 15% of searches made, and usually in a collapsed or “opt-in” state.

Google launched AI Overviews in mid-May to all users and, following some viral mistakes, it seems the company has pulled back, as new research shows it may be appearing in merely 15% of search queries.

AI Overviews in Google Search, as Google itself said, are a feature of Search and will appear going forward when the system decides they might be useful, whether you want them or not. Google started rolling out the feature widely on May 14 and, as we quickly noted, it already seemed to show up less than it had during the initial run of the Search Generative Experience (SGE) experiment that launched in 2023.

Roughly a week after AI Overviews were made widely available, though, mistakes made by the AI were quickly made viral. Google defended AI Overviews on multiple occasions afterward, but also said it would take “swift action” on some of the dangerous replies. On May 30, Google again defended AI Overviews, but also said that it would make improvements.

Now, data from BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO platform, suggests Google may have also toned back AI Overviews in Search to a considerable extent.

Shared with Search Engine Land, this new data suggests that Google is only showing AI Overviews in around 15% of searches made, and usually in a collapsed or “opt-in” state. That’s down from roughly 40-50% when Google first rolled AI Overviews out, and from as much as 84% when taking collapsed or manually activated Overviews since February 2024.

This data is based on both when SGE was still an opt-in test, as well as since AI Overviews rolled out widely. So, while the idea that Google dropped the use of Overviews from 84% to 15% is not accurate to the situation, this data does make it clear that the company has considerably scaled back how often Overviews show up. That’s also something that, anecdotally, we’ve noticed over the past couple of weeks.

BrightEdge also points out that AI Overviews are most likely to appear when the query in Search is a question, or when a Featured Snippet also appears. That’s roughly in line with expectations, with things such as local searches not triggering AI.

What does this mean going forward? It’s abundantly clear that Google isn’t giving up on AI in Search – and it probably shouldn’t, as there are some really good ideas in the pipeline – but scaling back may be wise given the initial public reception. Google previously said:

We’ll keep improving when and how we show AI Overviews and strengthening our protections, including for edge cases, and we’re very grateful for the ongoing feedback.