Google Gemini: 3 Things to Know About AI Overviews

Have you noticed something different about your Google Search results? This summer, Google Gemini, Google’s advanced AI, rolled out its newest AI tool: AI Overviews. 

Once dubbed “Google Search Generative Experience (SGE),” AI Overviews is the latest attempt to organize search results to “take the legwork out of searching.”  Marketers everywhere are invested in this new tool, eager to attain a top-performing search result and appear in the AI overview.

While there’s been some mixed reviews of the tool, there’s a few things we know for certain. We’ve compiled a list of the most important things to note about this new AI overview tool and how it affects brands’ current marketing efforts.

How AI Overviews Works

AI Overviews began as a Search Labs experiment and was rolled out across the United States in May of 2024. This tool pieces the top-performing search results into one comprehensive list and inserts it into the top of your search results. Results will pop up as short paragraphs pulled from various websites to point out key facts or answers to your search, all of which link to the appropriate webpages.

While users are accustomed to entering a fairly basic search, AI Overviews allows for a more detailed search. For example, instead of searching “best pizza near me,” users can input “best buffalo chicken pizza within 15 minutes of Youngstown, Ohio” and receive results. A list of relevant results will be generated, along with reviews, photos and a summary of that website. 

The information pulled for these results will only come from reputable, optimized websites and resources, making SEO even more vital to your marketing efforts. 

ai overviews example
An example of AI Overviews.

How SGE affects current marketing efforts

Google reports that businesses are seeing an increase in organic traffic through Google Search while other third party studies have shown that companies are actually seeing a decrease. 

According to Search Engine Land, organic traffic will decrease between 44-75% for many businesses due to SGE. If your business is among the many to get moved down the list of results, you may experience a negative impact on click-through rate, traffic and more. 

However, proper SEO can lead to your business appearing in SGE snapshots, giving your company its best chance at increasing traffic and seeing a positive return. SEO strategies will need to adapt by focusing more on creating authoritative, high-quality content that satisfies search intent and is likely to be included in Google’s AI-generated responses. With SGE, marketers will need to work even harder to keep brands top-of-list and, ideally, inserted into the AI Overviews snapshot. 

It is important to note that for now, this feature does not get rid of “sponsored” search results. Brands who pay good money to show up as a top search result will not lose their dedicated spots within Google Search.

AI is here to stay

AI is here to stay, transforming industries and everyday life in profound ways. Its benefits are undeniable: increased efficiency, enhanced decision-making, and the automation of repetitive tasks allow businesses to operate more effectively.

However, the rise of AI comes with challenges for all. Automation may displace certain jobs, leaving some individuals in need of retraining. Additionally, ethical concerns regarding privacy, bias and the potential for misuse highlight the need for responsible AI development. As AI continues to evolve, striking a balance between progress and ethical considerations is key to ensuring it benefits everyone.

AI Overview, or Google SGE, is just one of the newest ways to make consumers’ lives easier and marketing professionals’ jobs tougher. Those in the marketing and advertising industry must work harder than ever to provide quality results for the brands they represent, while consumers must attempt to differentiate quality content and factual information from biased results and propaganda. 

google search, ai overviews

What Should I Be Doing to Ensure My Business Stays Relevant?

The first step to ensuring your business stays visible on Google is to hire an SEO professional. Writing for SEO isn’t simple—you must make sure that content contains keywords and plenty of quality content without overdoing it. Google can tell when a page is over-optimized, marking it as unreliable, and will likely push it further down the results list. 

An SEO pro knows how and when to optimize a web page and performs extensive keyword research before implementing a strategy. If hiring an SEO professional isn’t feasible for your company, it may be time to brush up on SEO basics. This course from Hootsuite is free and educational, giving you a higher level look into the world of search engine optimization.

As always, the 898 Marketing team is here to help. There’s no need to worry about the ongoing advancement of Google Search results when you have our team working diligently to keep your brand top-of-mind and top-of-the-list. Contact us today!