Two new studies agree: Google’s AI Overviews steal clicks from organic search results.
While Google told us that AI Overviews citations result in higher-quality clicks, the introduction of AI Overviews correlates with a measurable decline in organic visibility and clicks, particularly for top-ranking, non-branded keywords. That’s according to two new data studies from SEO tool provider Ahrefs and performance agency Amsive.
By the numbers. Here’s how AI Overviews have decreased click-through rate (CTR) for traditional organic listings, according to the two studies:
Ahrefs: A 34.5% drop in position 1 CTR when AI Overviews were present, based on an analysis of 300,000 keywords.
Amsive: An average 15.49% CTR drop, with much larger losses in specific cases (e.g., -37.04% when combined with featured snippets), based on an analysis of 700,000 keywords.
Non-branded keywords. AI Overviews are much more likely to trigger on non-branded queries, and these terms showed the largest CTR drops:
Amsive: -19.98% CTR decline on non-branded keywords.
Ahrefs: Focused exclusively on informational intent (99.2% overlap with AI Overviews).
Lower rankings = bigger CTR hits. Google’s AI Overviews push organic results further down, minimizing visibility even for solidly ranking pages.
There was a -27.04% CTR drop for keywords not in the Top 3 positions, according to Amsive:
AI Overviews benefit branded queries. Branded keywords are less likely to trigger AI Overviews (only 4.79%) – but when they do, they get a +18.68% CTR boost. This is possibly due to greater user intent and brand familiarity, according to Amsive.
Why we care. These two studies (as well as data from Seer Interactive, which we covered in Google organic and paid CTRs hit new lows: Report) call into question Google’s claim that AI Overviews get more clicks than traditional listings. Google’s claim may or may not be true, but these studies show that overall clicks have gone down – and many websites ranking well in Classic Search aren’t included in AI Overviews.
About the data:
Ahrefs: Used Ahrefs + Google Search Console (GSC) data to analyze CTR changes before (March 2024) and after (March 2025) the U.S. rollout of AI Overviews.
Amsive: Pulled data from 700,000 keywords across 10 websites and 5 industries to isolate patterns by keyword type, industry, and SERP feature overlap.
The studies. You can read them here:
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About the author
Danny Goodwin is Editorial Director of Search Engine Land & Search Marketing Expo – SMX. He joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as Senior Editor. In addition to reporting on the latest search marketing news, he manages Search Engine Land’s SME (Subject Matter Expert) program. He also helps program U.S. SMX events.
Goodwin has been editing and writing about the latest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. He previously was Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal (from 2017 to 2022), managing editor of Momentology (from 2014-2016) and editor of Search Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.
