AI Overview: it’s not enough to just be there. SEOZoom tells you if you really matter.
Since the end of March, we have seen it appear, multiply, and change the shape of Google’s SERP. And we were rightly concerned about the immediate drop in organic traffic it caused, pushing the dynamics of zero-click searches even further. What also took us aback was the inability to analyze, predict, and estimate the true impact of AI Overview on our content and sites. At least, until now. Behind this “wall” of AI-generated text, we saw a challenge to be overcome. We took a radically different approach because, as Ivano Di Biasi said, the usual (and somewhat trivial) filter that shows you which keywords Google’s AI Overview appears for was not enough for us: we wanted to show you where you are. We have finally released our feature, the first (and only) one that allows you to measure how much it really affects the effectiveness of your content. It doesn’t just tell you if the overview is present: it shows you if your content is mentioned, at what points in the response, how much traffic it generates (or loses), and which competitors are benefiting from it. It’s not a snapshot. It’s an analysis and action system with precise numbers, comparable historical data, and proprietary indicators, designed to understand what really happens to your content when Google’s artificial intelligence comes into play.
Let’s get organized: let’s start with Google’s AI Overview
A quick recap for those who missed the previous episodes—and have been living on Mars for the last three months.
AI Overview is the feature Google uses to generate automatic responses at the top of the search results page (or in a highly visible position), without the user having to click on a website. The aim is to provide an immediate summary, built by Gemini AI from selected web sources, to answer a question directly and contextually.
According to initial analyses, it already appears in about 15% of desktop searches in the United States and covers over 88% of queries with informational intent (commercial and navigational queries are also increasing), but the growth rate is impressive.
Its impact is clear: in many niches, it is draining traffic even from well-ranked sites, particularly in publishing and SEO journalism. Above all, AI is rewriting the dynamics of organic visibility, because selection does not always follow the classic rules of SEO and, to date, only a third of the sources in AI Overview come from the organic top 10, while over 46% come from sites that are beyond the 50th position in standard results.
In practice, it is no longer enough to be well positioned: the algorithm chooses content that responds well to the query, even if it does not “rank” in the traditional way. And often the beneficiaries are sites such as Reddit, Quora, or Wikipedia, which dominate in terms of number of citations.
For those who work with SEO, this means facing a new form of competition: not only climbing the SERPs, but understanding how to get recognized and selected by Google’s AI. Obviously, the exact selection criteria have not been made public, but there is a noticeable preference for vertical, up-to-date, well-organized, and clearly written content. And as AI Overview continues to grow—in some sectors at double the rate month on month—understanding whether you are present and how is becoming essential.
Our philosophy: don’t suffer change, measure it to manage it
This is the context, and the instinctive reaction to such a momentous change is defense — or rather, it is the second reaction, after the fear of losing everything, summed up in phrases such as “SEO is dead” (again!) or “websites are no longer useful,” which we read everywhere!
However, it is impossible to defend yourself against something you do not fully understand. That is why our response to the uncertainty of AI Overviews could not be yet another tool that simply signals the presence of an AI box with an icon. Knowing that a generative answer exists for a given keyword is news, not strategic information. It’s like knowing it’s raining without having a barometer to measure the intensity or a roof to shelter under.
The real question a professional should be asking is: “Is my website present in that answer? And if so, with what authority? Am I gaining or losing visibility? How are my competitors performing?”
We have built our new feature around these questions. Our goal is to turn fear into strategy and uncertainty into measurable, actionable data. We wanted to give you the tools not only to see the new battlefield, but to understand exactly where you stand, which shots are hitting their mark, and where you need to focus your energy to win. It’s the end of passive play: it’s time to start measuring so you can take action.
Not a filter: real analysis
All other tools that have tried to read AI Overview have stopped at the surface: they only show if a keyword triggers one, and if a domain is positioned in the classic SERP for that word. But this approach is misleading: it’s not enough to know that an AI box exists and that the site is in the top organic position. You need to know if your content has actually been selected by Google to build the AI response.
And that’s exactly the leap we’ve made. SEOZoom is the only tool that tells you precisely if you’re there, where you are, how much you count in the generated response, and how much real traffic you’re getting from that mention. No useless filters, no generic estimates. Just real data about your visibility in AI Overview.
What the AI Overview feature in SEOZoom really does
To turn data into decisions, you first need to understand it thoroughly. That’s why we’ve designed a real command center for AI Overviews, giving you the ability to study the phenomenon from complementary and fundamental perspectives: the micro perspective of the individual keyword and the macro perspective of your entire domain (or that of your competitors). We are also developing a third level of analysis, URL analysis, to monitor the behavior and effectiveness of individual pages in detail.
We don’t just tell you if there is an AI Overview box on a SERP: we show you if you’re there, where you appear, and what effect it has on your content. It’s the first feature that allows you to analyze in detail the relationship between your content and the AI responses generated by Google, with concrete data that is useful for decision-making.
In a nutshell, it allows you to:
- Identify all keywords for which your site is present within an active AI Overview
- Know which of your pages are included, how many times, and with what degree of visibility
- Check your position within the AI text, distinguishing whether you are among the top references or at the bottom
- Analyze how much potential traffic you get thanks to your presence in the overview
- Compare your visibility with that of your competitors, both at the domain level and — for your content — at the individual page level.
Every time one of your pages is mentioned in an AI Overview, SEOZoom records how and how much it appears: this gives you a strategic reading system with metrics designed to measure effectiveness and identify critical issues.
You can see the number of mentions, the position in the AI response, the estimated traffic, and the trend over time. You can find out if your page is mentioned as the first reference, if it is the one that brings the most traffic, or if it is simply a marginal appearance. Above all, you can compare this information with that of competitors occupying the same space to understand who is gaining visibility in your place and with what content.
In the domain view, our new proprietary metric—AI Rank—shows you how relevant your page is compared to others in the same AI response. It’s an internal ranking that lets you understand how much your content really matters within that box generated by Google.
In practice, this means being able to distinguish between two completely different situations: a page that “passes” in the overview but leaves no trace, and one that actively contributes to generating traffic and authority.
The micro perspective: single keyword analysis
Let’s dive deeper into how AI Overview works in SEOZoom.
When you analyze a keyword, our platform takes you inside the answer generated by Google, breaking it down to reveal its internal dynamics. Instead of a bulleted list, you’ll find an analysis that shows you, for each page mentioned, its exact position within the paragraphs of the AI answer. This is no small detail: being mentioned in the first paragraph carries much more weight and visibility than a mention in the conclusions.
Next to the position, we evaluate the relevance of your page, letting you know how decisive your content was in generating that specific response. Added to this is an estimate of potential traffic, a crucial indicator for deciding whether it is worth investing in obtaining or improving that mention. Finally, thanks to historical tracking, you can monitor your presence over time, checking whether the optimizations you make are working or whether a competitor is undermining you.
You can start with a single keyword to analyze the structure of the associated AI response, check which content has been selected, and where your pages appear. Or you can analyze the entire domain and get a complete overview: how many keywords generate an AI Overview, how many times you appear, how many times you are the first result mentioned, and what share of real visibility you get.
All this information is updated over time, allowing you to monitor the evolution of your visibility in relation to changes at Google.
The macro perspective: the overview of domains
If keyword analysis is the microscope, domain analysis is the telescope. It allows you to take a step back and evaluate your overall performance in the new AI Overview scenario. In the projects area, you will always have a clear and immediate overview showing you the number of keywords for which at least one of your pages has been selected by Google to build a generative response. If you run a classic domain analysis, you can also explore your competitors’ behavior, finding out where they appear, how visible they are, and what content is working for them.
You will be able to see how many times your site has been mentioned within AI blocks, how many of these mentions came in first position — a clear sign of authority — and what average position you occupy in the responses in which you are present. To complete the picture, there is overall visibility, calculated based on the overviews in which your domain appears: a useful estimate to understand how much real space you can gain in the boxes generated by artificial intelligence.
And then there’s AI Rank, SEOZoom’s exclusive metric that doesn’t just look at visual position, but evaluates the actual impact of content on potential traffic. It’s an internal ranking designed to compare the effectiveness of your pages against those of your competitors in the same overview, going beyond appearances to measure results.
The real strength of this feature is its measurability. It doesn’t just tell you whether you’re “in or out” of an overview, it shows you how much you’re earning, which pages are performing best, and — by analyzing your competitors — where you can improve to gain ground.
It’s a concrete analysis, designed for agencies, professionals, and brands who want to quantify the impact of AI on their editorial strategy and react with targeted actions.
Read the data to understand what’s happening to your content
Knowing that you’re present in an AI Overview is useful, but it’s not enough. The point is to understand whether that presence is bringing you value or whether you’re just a bit player in a scene that doesn’t reward you. This is where SEOZoom’s analysis becomes a strategic tool.
If your page is mentioned at the bottom of the AI response, it’s not a victory: it’s a signal. It means that the content has been recognized as relevant, but not strong or structured enough to become central to Google’s summary.
On the other hand, if a competitor appears with multiple pages in the top position, with estimated traffic on the rise and a consistent presence, then that’s a strategy that’s working — and you can study it to adapt your own.
With this information, you can review your content organization, improve the semantic readability of your pages, and check whether you are correctly covering the search intent that triggers the overviews. You can decide whether to update, rewrite, or restructure certain sections to make them more suitable for the generative format. Or you can identify new keywords to work on, not only from a ranking perspective, but with the aim of being selected by AI to answer specific questions.
In practice, you move from monitoring to action. The difference is that now you know where to intervene, how to do it, and, above all, why it is worth doing.
Want more practical ideas? You can perform a content gap analysis, comparing your domain with those of your competitors and identifying strategic keywords where AI Overviews are already active and your competitors are present, but you are not yet visible.
These are the priority opportunities to focus your attack on. Once you have identified the keyword, you can analyze the AI response generated by Google, study the content that has been selected, and understand what topics it covers, with what angle and depth. It is the ideal starting point for planning a more competitive text, designed to be chosen.
Looking ahead: what lies beyond AI Overview
We need to prepare ourselves: AI Overview is just the beginning. After announcing it at the last Google I/O 2025, Google is already experimenting with the next step, the so-called “AI Mode,” an even more immersive and conversational search experience, where AI will not just provide a summary, but will orchestrate a real dialogue with the user, planning, comparing, and suggesting complex paths.
In this near future (after testing in the US, testing has now started in India), visibility will be even more difficult to achieve and measure—and we have also discussed this in our analysis. But the good news is that the rules for standing out will be an evolution of those we are learning today. Understanding how to be authoritative, relevant, and useful for AI Overviews is the best training you can do to be ready for tomorrow’s AI Mode. Learning how to optimize content to be cited today means laying the foundations to be a leader in tomorrow’s search.
