AI Overviews appear almost only for informational queries

Moderate evidence

A credible test with a real sample and a stated method, but unreplicated or narrow in scope.

Researcher

Louise Linehan

Published by

Ahrefs

Date

31 October 2024

Method

Open search in Ahrefs Keywords Explorer with the AI Overview SERP filter applied. Exported the top 150,000 AIO keywords and repeated for 150,000 non-AIO keywords, then compared volume, word count and intent in a spreadsheet.

Sample

300,000 keywords (150,000 with AI Overviews, 150,000 without)

Original

ahrefs.com →

By James Burfield · Published 27 July 2026

What they did

Ahrefs pulled 150,000 keywords that trigger an AI Overview and 150,000 that do not, using its own AIO SERP filter, then compared their traits.

What they found

99.2% of keywords that trigger an AI Overview carry informational intent. Those keywords have far lower search volume (median 500 versus 29,000) and are longer (median 4 words versus 2). And 99.9% of AIO result pages also show at least one other SERP feature.

How much weight to give it

The sample is large and the split design, AIO against non-AIO, is a clean way to isolate what predicts an Overview. Useful for understanding where Overviews turn up.

What it doesn't prove

It leans on one vendor's AIO detection and is an October 2024 snapshot. Overview coverage changes often, so the prevalence split will drift.

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