AI Overview (Google SERP)
AI Overview is the LLM-generated answer that Google shows at the top of search results for many queries — synthesising information from multiple sources and citing them inline. AI Overview replaced Featured Snippets as the primary 'answer above the blue links' surface and is now a major channel for content visibility in Google Search.
AI Overview launched generally in 2024 and expanded coverage significantly through 2025-2026. The implications for content strategy: rank-in-results is no longer the only goal — being cited in the AI Overview is increasingly the goal, because users often don't click through when the overview answers the question directly. Optimising for AI Overview citation requires: clear definition-first content, structured speakable selectors, FAQ schema with concise answers, and authority signals (backlinks, original research). The metric most teams track is AI Overview citation share, distinct from traditional organic ranking.
Related terms
- AI citation (cross-LLM)
AI citation is the inclusion of a website's content (with source attribution) in the response of an AI assistant — ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Claude with web access, Gemini, Bing Copilot.
- Semantic search
Semantic search retrieves documents based on meaning rather than keyword overlap — using embedding vectors and similarity scoring to match queries to documents that express the same concept in different words.
- Large language model (LLM)
A large language model is a neural network trained on enormous text corpora to predict the next token given preceding tokens — typically with billions to trillions of parameters.