We recently learned that the Google Search Console is starting to show visibility data for Google’s generative AI search features, including AI Overviews and AI Mode. This is huge news, as previously we have been starved for data when it comes to what actually performs in AI Overviews. Let’s jump into some (early) analysis.

Note: the reports are still early and imperfect. The current AI-based search results overviews do not give us all the context we would want, including the queries, topics, or user behavior behind the impressions. But one pattern is clear:

AI Search is heavily favoring educational, informational content over traditional transactional pages.

That lines up with what we’ve been tracking across the search landscape. As we wrote in our recent blog post “Google’s AI Search Shift: What Arts & Culture Organizations Should Know”, your website still matters, but it is increasingly functioning as source material for AI-generated answers that naturally fall into the “research” phase of a patron’s journey.