Are you noticing that Google is rarely displaying AI Overviews lately?

Google is showing AI Overviews less frequently lately. Are you noticing this change in search results and how it affects your queries?

Jul 17, 2024 - 10:50
Are you noticing that Google is rarely displaying AI Overviews lately?
What about you? Have you seen AI Overviews recently?

AI Overviews are increasingly rare in Google Search, now appearing in under 10% of queries. Just two months after their launch for US users, the feature has faced significant backlash due to major errors, prompting Google to reduce its usage. Initially, AI Overviews were shown in over 80% of searches during testing but fell to about 40-50% upon wider release in May, dropping further to 15% after incidents like the infamous glue-on-pizza mistake.

Recent data from SearchEngineLand and BrightEdge indicates that as of late June, AI Overviews are now present in only about 7% of searches, down from 11% earlier that month. Specifically, their appearance in educational queries has halved from 26% to 13%, in e-commerce searches from 26% to 9%, and in entertainment questions has plummeted to nearly 0% from 14%. Following these viral errors, AI Overviews are also citing Reddit far less in their responses.

Anecdotally, we’ve noticed that AI Overviews are rarely appearing now. They only show up on rare occasions, even in previously common spots. Previously, AI Overviews were most frequent in direct questions, but now even simple queries like “Is the Pixel Watch waterproof?” return Featured Snippets and links instead of AI-generated responses.

What about you? Have you seen AI Overviews recently? Vote in the poll below and share in the comments whether you prefer search results with or without AI Overviews.

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