Google AI Overviews CTR: Rebound Tests the 'Still SEO' Message

Google has a new message for site owners worried about AI search: there is no separate discipline to learn. Click-through data from the past year suggests that this is only half the story. Google is right that the old playbook still applies. It is less convincing on whether that playbook still produces the traffic it once did.

What Google is now saying

Google has published a documentation page titled "Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search." It builds on AI features guidance the company released in 2025 1. The earlier material explained how AI Overviews and AI Mode work and how inclusion is reported. The new page is more prescriptive. It frames answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) as part of ordinary SEO, not standalone practices 1.

The guide also names tactics Google considers unnecessary for its generative features:

• llms.txt files
• breaking content into "chunks"
• rewriting pages specifically for AI
• special schema markup

1

This lands in a market full of urgent rebranding. On LinkedIn, posts shared by Search Engine Watch have urged brands to stand up "code-red" AEO teams. Those posts cite claims that 60% of searches end without a click and that AI Overviews appear in 47% of searches 5.

What the click data shows

Seer Interactive has the longest-running public dataset on this, and its numbers complicate Google's tidy framing.

In its third study, published in April 2026, Seer found that organic CTR on queries with an AI Overview fell for about 18 months. It hit a floor of 1.3% in December 2025, then climbed to 2.4% by February 2026, an 85% rebound in two months 3. Seer had built regression models projecting continued decline. The early-2026 data instead hints at stabilization 3.

Earlier figures show how deep the drop went. Seer's initial work tracked AIO-query CTR falling from 1.76% to 0.61%, a 61% decline 4.

The rebound does not restore parity. Queries without an AI Overview sit around 3.3% CTR 2. Seer also found that informational queries Google leaves without an AIO are increasingly where users click, with CTR rising from 2.9% to 4% by the end of 2025 3. Its consistent finding is that AI Overviews suppress clicks most on informational queries. The effect is sharpest for pages that appear in the Overview without being cited as a source 3.

Other datasets point the same way:

• Sistrix (Germany): position-one CTR drops from 27% to 11% when an AI Overview is present. That works out to about 6.6% of all organic clicks, roughly 265 million a month in that market 4.
• User panel research: people clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits with an AI summary, versus 15% without one 4.
• Aggregate estimates: CTR losses range from about 34% to 61% depending on the study 4.
• Zero-click searches: reportedly reached 68% of US Google queries in early 2026, up from 60.45% two years earlier 2.

Where the numbers diverge

Prevalence figures vary widely. One roundup puts AI Overviews on just over one in five US searches, across more than 200 countries and 40 languages 2. The LinkedIn posts cite 47% 5. Differences in query sets, markets, and timing likely explain much of the gap. Even so, alarm-driven marketing tends to favor the higher number.

Traffic-loss estimates spread just as widely. Claims range from "up to 30%" 5 to 30–60% in some categories 5. Zero-click estimates run as high as 83% of AI Overview searches in some 2026 datasets 4.

The citation problem

The most telling figure may not be about CTR at all. Only 38% of pages cited in AI Overviews still rank in Google's organic top 10, down from 76% eighteen months earlier 2. BrightEdge puts that overlap nearer 17% 2.

This is where "still SEO" gets strained. Seer's data shows that being cited, not merely ranked, protects clicks 3. If citation and ranking are drifting apart, classic ranking work no longer guarantees the visibility that matters.

The reading

Google's guidance is useful as a filter against snake oil. Most of the tactics it dismisses are speculative, and telling site owners not to chase them is reasonable 1. Treating AEO and GEO as rebranded SEO also cuts through a lot of consultant noise.

But "still SEO" answers a question about method, not outcome. The evidence suggests the method is the same while the payoff has shrunk. Clicks on AI Overview queries remain well below non-AIO baselines even after the rebound 23. The link between ranking and being cited is weakening 2.

The early-2026 recovery is real and worth watching. It covers a short window, though, and one rebound does not reverse a structural trend. For publishers, the practical takeaway is to keep doing fundamental SEO, skip the gimmicks, and measure citation presence and query mix, not just rankings.