Google AI Overviews now appear for most major brands

Google now shows AI Overviews on most branded searches. In new data from DemandSphere, AI Overviews appeared for 26.12% of the branded queries it tracks on September 1. They peaked at 90.48% on September 27 and were at 82.06% on September 29, the last day in its data. DemandSphere's numbers cover all markets and devices, and they haven’t said how many keywords it tracks.

Other data puts the starting point much higher. Ahrefs, which looked only at U.S. desktop results, found AI Overviews on 65.1% of branded keywords in August and 82.91% on September 29. Both datasets agree that the rate was above 80% at the end of September. They disagree on how big the jump was.

Chris Long, co-founder of Nectiv, flagged the change on X on September 30. He found AI Overviews for 93 of the 100 enterprise brands he tested. Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz checked several brands himself and saw the same thing, except for Google's own name and news publications. Schwartz also noted that Long reported something similar in July, though AI Overviews now show for far more queries than they did then.

Google hasn't announced a change related to branded queries. DemandSphere's daily numbers also didn't climb in a straight line. The rate jumped to 57.43% on September 18 and was back at 31.15% the next day. It moved between roughly 30% and 57% for another week before reaching 69.21% on September 26 and staying high. Google hasn't said whether the change is finished, so the rate could still move.

Why branded AI Overviews matter

AI Overviews aren't new, but what's notable here is where they're appearing. Branded queries come from people already searching for a specific company or product, which has traditionally made these searches a relatively predictable part of the customer journey.

An AI Overview changes that experience. Alongside the company's site and other familiar search results, a searcher may now encounter Google's synthesis of information about the brand.

That means ranking well for your own brand may no longer tell you everything you need to know about your branded search visibility. If an AI Overview appears, marketers also need to know whether their brand appears in the answer, how Google describes it, which sources support the response, and whether competitors appear alongside it. It may also mean rethinking the performance benchmarks for branded queries if rankings remain stable while click-through rates change.

There's also an important limitation to the DemandSphere data. DemandSphere measured whether an AI Overview appeared for a branded search, not whether the brand itself appeared or was cited in the AI-generated answer.

So the data only tells us that AI Overviews are appearing more often for branded queries. What those AI Overviews actually say about the brands is a separate question, and one marketers now have a reason to investigate.

How to monitor your branded visibility with Semrush

If AI Overviews keep appearing this often on branded searches, monitoring your brand's Google visibility means watching both your rankings and the AI-generated answers that appear for those searches. Start by identifying which branded queries trigger AI Overviews and comparing those results with your organic rankings for the same queries.

Then check whether it's touched your clicks. In Google Search Console, filter the Performance report to your branded queries and compare CTR for a full week before AI Overviews showed up on your brand terms with a full week after. Use CTR rather than clicks, since branded demand also rises and falls with your own marketing. If you don't know when your AI Overview first appeared, compare September 8-14 with September 29-October 5. In DemandSphere's data, the rate stayed between 28% and 34% in the first week and above 80% by late September.

If your branded rankings held steady but CTR dropped, the AI Overview is the first place to look. Our guide to AI Overviews traffic loss walks through how to diagnose it.

Then search your own brand name while signed out and read the AI Overview the way a customer would. Note what it says about you, which pages it cites, and whether those pages are current.

Position Tracking checks your rankings daily. Add your branded keywords, open the Overview tab, use the SERP features filter, and select "AI Overviews" to see which of them cite your site in an AI Overview. Position Tracking counts a citation as a #1 ranking, so use the SERP features toggle to see your organic positions with AI Overviews left out.

But rankings only show one side of the picture. AI Visibility Reports in the AI Visibility Toolkit track where your brand is mentioned and cited across Google AI Overviews and other AI platforms.

For branded queries that trigger an AI Overview, look beyond whether you hold the top organic position. Check whether your brand appears in the generated answer, which pages and third-party sources Google cites, and whether competing brands are introduced into the response.

Together, those views can help you distinguish a traditional ranking problem from a change in how your brand appears in AI-generated search results.