AI Overviews and GEO: keep your business visible in 2026

An AI Overview is the summarised answer Google displays above search results, drawing on information from several websites. It is convenient for the searcher, but many people no longer click through. SparkToro research using Similarweb data found that 68% of Google searches in early 2026 ended without a click to a website. For searches with an AI Overview, that rises to an average of 83% without a click.

If your rankings remain stable while visitor numbers fall, this is often the explanation. Your ranking has not necessarily worsened; search behaviour has changed. The question is no longer just am I at the top?, but also: am I cited in the AI answer?

Seer Interactive's large study, following 2,43 billion impressions over 14 months, offers good news for businesses that do the groundwork. Brands appearing as a source in an AI Overview receive around 35% more clicks than brands that do not. Those not cited retain less than a third of the clicks that the same search used to deliver.

Click figures are also recovering for cited sources: after a low point in late 2025, click-through rates on searches with an AI Overview rose sharply again in early 2026. The lesson is clear: traffic is shifting towards businesses that inform the AI answer. A small business can be one of them just as a large company can, because AI systems cite based on content quality and clarity rather than media budget.

Do not believe claims that SEO is dead. Google still handles 73,7% of desktop searches in the US, while AI tools together account for about 3,2%. Growth is happening in AI, however: referral traffic from AI assistants grew by a factor of 9,9 in 19 months, and ChatGPT now has around 900 million weekly users.

The foundations remain the same: a technically healthy, fast website with a clear structure that crawlers can read. GEO adds another layer: writing and structuring content so a language model can understand it, summarise it and attribute it correctly. A strong position in Google gives you a head start, but not a guarantee.

Researchers from Princeton, Georgia Tech and IIT Delhi tested changes that increase visibility in AI answers. Three tactics stood out, increasing visibility by up to 40% (measured in an experimental benchmark, not a prediction of live citations): adding statistics, naming sources and including quotations. For your website, that means:

• Answer first: start each page or section with a direct answer in 2 to 3 sentences, then explain it.
• Use concrete figures: replace vague claims, such as fast delivery, with measurable facts, such as delivery within 48 hours throughout Flanders.
• Name your sources: link to the research or statistic behind your figures.
• Add FAQ sections: genuine customer questions with self-contained answers of 2 to 4 sentences are frequently cited.
• Use tables and lists: structured information is easier for a language model to process than long blocks of text.

Think AI search is only for American technology enthusiasts? The figures suggest otherwise. According to imec.digimeter 2025, 43% of Flemish people use generative AI tools habitually, and two in three have tried ChatGPT or Gemini at least once. That is almost twice the previous year's share.

People looking for an accountant, contractor or webshop increasingly ask an AI assistant directly. Its recommendation draws on what it finds about your business online: your website, Google Business Profile, reviews and mentions elsewhere. Every incomplete or outdated page is a missed opportunity to appear in that answer.

GEO is not an instant fix. Allow 3 to 6 months for effects to become visible, because AI systems need to crawl, process and trust your content first. Start with the foundations:

1. Week 1: test 10 questions your customers might ask in Google, ChatGPT and Perplexity. Record who is cited and why.
2. Weeks 2 to 4: rewrite your 5 most important pages using the answer-first approach, figures, sources and FAQs.
3. Month 2: add structured data such as Organization, LocalBusiness and FAQPage, and check that robots.txt does not block AI crawlers.
4. Month 3 onwards: build authority through mentions on industry websites, in local media and in relevant directories. AI systems cite sources corroborated elsewhere.

Repeat the test from week 1 every month and track whether you appear more often.

Alongside Google itself, consider the assistants. Flova explains how a Belgian business can appear in ChatGPT and Perplexity.

The shift towards AI search is already visible in today's figures. Businesses improving their content and technical foundations now can benefit in the coming months. Want to know how your website performs, from conventional SEO to AI readiness? Try the free marketing scan from Marketing Scan. Within a few minutes you receive a practical report with improvements you can start working on.