Google AI Overviews Now Cover Half of Searches - New Data Shows Where Links Get Buried

Google AI Overviews expansion across industries

In a new analysis, BrightEdge’s report compares query data from February 2025 and February 2026 across multiple sectors. Overall AI Overviews coverage grew 58 percent during that period.

Healthcare, B2B technology, education, insurance, entertainment, travel, online retail, finance, and restaurants recorded the strongest increases in AI Overviews visibility.

Key details and background

Education queries saw some of the largest changes. BrightEdge reports growth from 18 percent of queries showing AI Overviews in May 2025 to 83 percent by December 2025. B2B technology queries increased from 36 percent to 82 percent in the same timeframe.

Restaurant-related searches rose from 10 percent showing AI Overviews to 78 percent by late 2025. Healthcare queries, which already triggered AI Overviews for 72 percent of searches in 2024, reached 88 percent by December 2025. BrightEdge highlights these industries as having the strongest AI Overviews expansion.

Additional measured findings from the referenced studies include:

• AI Overviews now appear on nearly 50 percent of tracked search queries.
• Classic, link-only search results still appear for approximately 52 percent of queries.
• The average AI Overviews module measures more than 1,200 pixels in height on desktop screens.
• The first organic listing often appears below the fold when AI Overviews is present.
• Only about 17 percent of URLs cited in AI Overviews also rank within the top ten organic results.
• Overlap between AI Overviews citations and organic rankings increases when the top 100 results are considered.

BrightEdge notes that many result pages still appear without AI Overviews and present only ranked links. Other pages begin with an AI-generated summary followed by traditional search results, creating two distinct result types that currently co-exist in Google Search.

Google began rolling out AI Overviews in Search in 2024, following earlier experiments with generative search results. An OpenAI report from January 2026 states that more than 5 percent of ChatGPT conversations involve healthcare topics and that 25 percent of weekly active users ask ChatGPT health-related questions.

A Brookings Institution survey finds that 53 percent of surveyed U.S. healthcare professionals use AI tools at work. The same survey measures AI usage among workers in other industries and the general public. BrightEdge cites these findings to contextualize healthcare’s high AI Overviews presence.

Source citations

• BrightEdge, “AI Overviews: One Year In - Presence, Size, and Citing” weekly AI search insights report
• OpenAI, “AI as a Healthcare Ally” research paper, January 2026
• Brookings Institution, “How are Americans using AI? Evidence from a nationwide survey”