AI Overviews and Click-Through Rates: What B2B Marketers Should Expect From AI Generated Answers

What Are Google AI Overviews?

AI Overviews are short summaries that Google’s AI writes and shows at the top of the results page. They answer the question directly and link to a few sources. Along with AI Mode, they are the main Google Search AI features, appearing alongside older SERP features such as the featured snippet and People Also Ask.

While a featured snippet quotes a single page, an AI Overview combines several pages into one answer, so searchers may never reach the regular links. For many questions, this turns Google into an AI answer engine, which links AI Overviews closely to zero-click search, where a search ends without a website visit.

What Real Search Data Shows About AI Overviews and CTR

Rather than relying on predictions, Seer Interactive studied real search data from 53 brands, covering 5.47 million searches and 2.43 billion organic impressions between January 2025 and February 2026. It compared clicks when Google showed an AI Overview, when it didn’t, and when a brand was cited in one.

A steep fall, then a partial recovery

On searches that showed an AI Overview, organic CTR fell from 3.19% in January 2025 to 1.31% in December 2025, then climbed back to 2.36% by February 2026. Seer says two months is too short to call it a trend.

Meanwhile, searches without an AI Overview became more valuable, with organic CTR rising from 2.75% to 3.82%. Seer’s best explanation is that Google mostly shows AI Overviews for simple questions, such as “what is a CRM”, while people with more specific questions are more likely to visit a website.

AI Overview CTR Depends on Whether You are Cited

When Google shows an AI Overview, it links to a few pages as sources. These cited pages got more than twice the clicks of pages left out, though still fewer than searches with no AI Overview:

Seer notes these are patterns, not proof of cause, as stronger brands are also more likely to be cited.

Why B2B Content Is More Exposed Than Most

Much B2B content is written for early-stage buyers, such as “what is” guides, how-to articles and comparisons like “SEO vs PPC”. These informational searches are exactly where Google AI search is most active.

Seer found that AI Overviews appeared on 36% of informational searches, far more than on commercial (8%) or transactional (5%) searches, where people are closer to buying.

So if your blog is full of comparison posts and “how to” guides, Google will usually show its AI answer above your link.

Will AI Overviews Reduce Website Traffic for B2B Brands?

For early-stage content, often yes.

Google says the number of clicks it sends to websites has stayed fairly stable year on year. It also says it now sends slightly more “quality clicks”, where people stay on a site instead of quickly returning to Google. This is Google’s view, with no figures shared.

Forrester’s State of Business Buying 2026, a survey of nearly 18,000 business buyers, found that 94% use AI when buying but check its answers with peers, experts and analysts. So a buyer who visits after reading an AI answer is often comparing a shortlist.

While traffic may fall, the visits you still get can be worth more, as long as your pages give buyers the detail they came for.

What It Means for Paid Search

The same study shows paid CTR on searches with an AI Overview rose slightly, from 14.6% to 16.2%, while on searches without one it fell from 26% to 21.8%.

Paid search is the more predictable channel right now, but it’s wise to review your cost per lead before increasing your budget. Our performance marketing team can help you find the right balance.

What B2B Marketers Should Do Now

• Check where you are exposed. List your top traffic searches and note which show an AI Overview, starting with question and comparison pages.
• Write to be cited, not just to rank. Give a clear answer near the top of each section, support claims with sources and keep pages current. Our guide on structuring content so AI engines can extract and cite it covers how to appear in Google AI Overviews and the practical side of answer engine optimisation. Our piece on E-E-A-T and AI generated content explains the credibility signals that help.
• Go after searches that do not trigger an AI Overview. These searches often need original data, a strong point of view, or deep expertise, which AI finds harder to summarise. Our content marketing services are built to create exactly this kind of content.
• Track clicks and impressions separately. CTR is clicks divided by impressions, so if your page appears in search more often but gets the same number of visits, CTR drops without any loss of traffic. That can be good news, as more people are seeing your brand. Always check both numbers.
• Measure what happens beyond the click. Watch branded searches, mentions in AI search tools and pipeline, not just sessions. Our Digital Intelligence practice links search data to revenue.

Finally, our guide to tracking your brand’s AI visibility shows how to measure it, our look at whether AI search will replace SEO explains how rankings and AI answers connect, and our guide on how to get your B2B brand to show up in AI search covers the formats that earn citations.