Do Google AI Overviews Cite D2C Brands? What the Research Shows

Google AI Overviews appear on fewer shopping searches than most brands assume, and when they do appear they often cite forums, video and big retailers rather than the brand itself. We have not run our own query test. This article brings together the published 2025 and 2026 research on how often AI Overviews show, which sites they cite, how citations overlap with top 10 rankings and what they do to clicks, then turns it into a plan for direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands.

How big AI Overviews are now

AI Overviews had more than 2 billion monthly users across more than 200 countries and territories and 40 languages by July 2025. Google says they drive over 10% more queries globally for the types of queries that show them (Google, 2025).

How often AI Overviews appear for D2C searches

Published rates vary by study, keyword set and month, so read them as ranges:

Sources: Semrush, 2025; Conductor, 2026; Conductor consumer discretionary benchmarks, 2026; Pew Research Center, 2025.

The trend matters as much as the level. Semrush found the share of commercial keywords triggering AI Overviews rose from 8.15% to 18.57% since October 2024, and transactional keywords from 1.98% to 13.94% (Semrush, 2025). Buying-stage searches are still covered less than informational ones, but the gap is closing.

For D2C brands: AI Overviews show far more on research questions ("is niacinamide safe with retinol", "how to choose a running shoe") than on product or shopping searches. Health topics are the most exposed: Conductor found AI Overviews on 48.75% of health care searches.

Which sites AI Overviews cite

The pattern: AI Overviews lean on community and video platforms, and in shopping categories on large retailers. A D2C brand is often cited indirectly, through a Reddit thread, a YouTube review or a retailer listing, rather than through its own site.

How citations overlap with top 10 rankings

• In July 2025, Ahrefs found 76.10% of AI Overview-cited pages ranked in the top 10 (1.9 million citations from 1 million AI Overviews; Ahrefs, 2025).

• A March 2026 Ahrefs update with improved parsing found only 37.9% of cited URLs ranked in the top 10 for the same keyword, while 31.0% ranked beyond position 100 (863,000 keywords; Ahrefs, 2026). Ahrefs notes the two studies are not directly comparable.

• BrightEdge found the share of AI Overview citations that also rank organically rose from 32.3% in May 2024 to 54.5% in September 2025 across nine industries. E-commerce was the outlier at 22.9%, up just 0.6 percentage points, against 75.3% in healthcare (BrightEdge, 2025).

For D2C brands: in e-commerce, ranking in the top 10 is a weak predictor of being cited. You need to be present on the pages AI Overviews pull from, not just rank your product page.

What AI Overviews do to clicks

• The presence of an AI Overview correlates with a 58% lower average click-through rate for the top-ranking page. Position-one CTR on AI Overview keywords fell from 0.073 in December 2023 to 0.016 in December 2025 (300,000 keywords; Ahrefs, 2026).

• Seer Interactive found organic CTR on informational queries with AI Overviews fell 61%, from 1.76% in June 2024 to 0.61% in September 2025. Paid CTR on the same queries fell 68% (Seer Interactive, 2025).

• Being cited helps. In Q3 2025, organic CTR was 0.70% when the brand was cited in the AI Overview and 0.52% when it was not, and paid CTR was 7.89% against 4.14%. Seer says it cannot prove the citation caused the difference (Seer Interactive, 2025).

• Pew found US users clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits to pages with an AI summary, against 15% without one. They clicked a link inside the summary in about 1% of visits, and ended their browsing session on 26% of pages with a summary, against 16% without (Pew Research Center, 2025).

One counterpoint: Semrush found the zero-click rate for the same keywords fell from 33.75% to 31.53% after they began showing AI Overviews, and concluded that AI Overviews do not automatically increase zero-click behaviour (Semrush, 2025).

What predicts whether a brand is mentioned

Ahrefs studied 75,000 brands. The strongest correlations with AI Overview mentions were all off-site: branded web mentions (0.664), branded anchors (0.527) and branded search volume (0.392). Backlinks were weaker at 0.218 (Ahrefs, 2025). Brands in the top quartile for web mentions averaged 169 AI Overview mentions, against 14 in the next quartile.

A plan for D2C brands

1. Cover the basics Google asks for. Google says there are no extra requirements or special schema for AI Overviews. A page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet. Google also recommends keeping Merchant Center and Business Profile information up to date and making sure structured data matches the visible text (Google Search Central).

2. Win the research queries. AI Overviews show most on informational searches, and blog content was the most-cited page type in Conductor's consumer discretionary data. Publish guides that answer the questions buyers ask before they pick a product.

3. Earn off-site mentions. Web mentions had the strongest correlation with AI Overview visibility in the Ahrefs study. Reviews, press coverage and creator content all count.

4. Show up where AI Overviews look. Reddit, YouTube and Quora lead the AI Overview source list in Profound's data. Product demos and honest reviews on YouTube, and real answers in relevant communities, give AI Overviews something to cite.

5. Keep retailer listings complete. In consumer staples and retail, the most-cited domains were Amazon, Walmart and Target, so your listings there are part of how you get cited.

6. Measure citations, not just rankings. Google counts AI Overview and AI Mode traffic inside the "Web" search type in Search Console (Google Search Central). Alongside it, track your priority queries for citations directly.

FAQ

Do Google AI Overviews show for product searches?

Less often than for research questions. Semrush found shopping keywords under 3% in November 2025, and Conductor found 6.82% of consumer staples searches showed an AI Overview. Coverage of commercial and transactional keywords is rising, though.

Do I need special markup to appear in AI Overviews?

No. Google says no special schema.org structured data or AI text files are needed. The page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet.

Does ranking first guarantee an AI Overview citation?

No. Ahrefs' 2026 analysis found only 37.9% of cited URLs ranked in the top 10, and BrightEdge measured just 22.9% overlap between citations and organic rankings in e-commerce.

Is it worth being cited if clicks are falling?

Seer's Q3 2025 data showed higher organic and paid CTR when a brand was cited in the AI Overview than when it was not. Seer cautions this is a correlation.

Noma by Nurdd tracks 13 AI engines, including Google AI Overviews, with ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude on every plan. It asks your prompts daily and records the page behind each citation. Plans start at $79/month, or $65/month billed annually, with a 3-day free trial (card taken at signup). More guides are on the Nurdd blog.

Sources

1. Google, Alphabet Q2 earnings call: CEO remarks (July 2025)
2. Semrush, AI Overviews Study (2025 data, 10M+ keywords)
3. Conductor, The 2026 AEO / GEO Benchmarks Report (US data, 2025)
4. Conductor, Consumer Discretionary Industry: 2026 AEO / GEO Benchmarks
5. Pew Research Center, Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results (July 2025)
6. Profound, AI Platform Citation Patterns (June 2025, updated August 2025)
7. Ahrefs, 76% of AI Overview Citations Pull From the Top 10 (July 2025)
8. Ahrefs, updated analysis of AI Overview citations and top 10 rankings (March 2026)
9. BrightEdge, AI Overview Citations Now 54% from Organic Rankings (September 2025)
10. Ahrefs, Update: AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 58% (February 2026)
11. Seer Interactive, AIO Impact on Google CTR: September 2025 Update (November 2025)
12. Ahrefs, An Analysis of AI Overview Brand Visibility Factors (75K Brands Studied) (May 2025)
13. Google Search Central, AI features and your website