Google may have dialed back how often they show AI Overviews in Google Search, especially in some verticals like health and finance (YMYL). Ziptie, a toolset that tracks Google AI Overviews, shows that overall, Google is showing 4 percentage points fewer AI Overviews today than it did a week ago.
This chart from Ziptie's AIO monitor shows Google was showing AI Overviews for over 17% of all queries back at the end of November. Now, on average, the tool is showing Google showing AI Overviews for less than 14% of all queries (although, this morning it did jump over 14%, so maybe things are returning?):
When you dig in, not all verticals are showing a decline. Health queries went from showing over 60% of the time, down to less than 50% of the time. Finance from 25% of the time to under 19% of the time. So maybe Google scaled back how often these AI Overviews are showing in the "your money, your life" categories?
I first spotted the decline from John Vantine who posted about it on Bluesky. He wrote, "SEO folks, looks like a serious decline in AIO prevalence since the end of November, based on this handy tracker from ZipTie. Of interest are big drops in Finance and Health. Any speculation around what's going on here? I'm not mad about it..."
I did reach out to Ziptie and they did not deny the drop or say there was any issue with their tracking tools.
If you look at the Semrush tool for AI Overviews, it does not show a drop. But that seems to be because this tracks fewer queries, when you dive into specific industries, there are drops reported by Semrush.
Here is the aggregate:
But as Glenn Gabe noted on X, "I am seeing similar drops for some verticals when checking Semrush (not when specifics domains are ranking, but when AIOs are appearing based on all queries those domains rank for). So it's possible AIO prevalence has dropped a bit recently. I'll dig in more soon, but worth noting."
Ziptie showing a drop in AIOs in the SERPs, but super hard to really determine how accurate that is. That said, I am seeing similar drops for some verticals when checking Semrush (not when specifics domains are ranking, but when AIOs are appearing based on all queries those… pic.twitter.com/DDOM0fEuND
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 7, 2024
Are you seeing your sites show up less often in AI Overviews? I am a bit surprised to see a decline but hey, maybe Google found some issues and pulled back before we can jump on them?
In May, Google pushed a big quality update for AI Overviews the industry named the Ray update.
Forum discussion at Bluesky and X.
Update on December 11: It seems like the tools are reporting things as back to normal levels:
