There’s a newish kid on the block that’s influencing how we all use search engines such as Google. Pretty much everyone will have noticed that certain searches on Google bring up the ‘AI Overview’. This is forcing a change in how SEO specialists and content writers approach their craft.
Nothing stays still for very long in the online world and adapting to change is vital if businesses want to survive – not just in tech industries, but in any company that relies on a website for generating business. AI is the latest thing that needs our attention, along with everything else. Few who use social media will be unaware of ‘AI slop’ (horrible expression): low quality, easily generated, and largely pointless content that is intended for cheap (and unfunny) laughs (see the above image!), or to try and con people into believing something that isn’t real (also, see the above image). But, this is just bad use of a tool. That’s all AI is – a tool that is only as good as the skills of the person using it. While AI can easily be used badly in the wrong hands, there’s signs that AI may be bad at using itself.
In SEO terms, and consequently its effect on website visits, there is an impact. SEO has been massively shifting beast over the last twenty years and we’re all subject to the whims of Google and what it decides are the rules. The latest spammer in the works (pun intended) is the AI Overview that appears at the top of Google after a search and few of our clients have asked how they take advantage of this. What is Google’s AI Overview? It first appeared in 2024 and is generated from multiple ‘trusted’ sources that already exist on indexed pages on Google from websites to, amazingly, social media posts. Those sources are then summarised in one easy bitesized answer to a question, usually with a link to a website at the end. In other words, it’s just information that’s already out there. AI Overview has now taken root and is influencing how we search online, and is affecting online marketing approaches. It’s changing our brains. It saves time. It’s kinda handy, you’d think. But…
A recent article in the New York Times states that a study by Omni, an AI startup, showed that Google’s AI Overview was accurate around nine times out of ten, give or take. Not bad. I’d be well happy with my beloved Sheffield Wednesday not losing nine times out of ten. But consider that Google processes nearly 13.7 billion requests each day, that would be over 1,300,000,000 inaccurate, or incorrect, AI Overviews a day (Woah! A lot of zeros!). That’s a lot of wrong information and that stat should be another catalyst to us considering what we trust, or don’t trust, online. In addition, because an AI Overview is generated from multiple online sources, it can give correct information from one source, and then follow up in the same overview with incorrect content from somewhere else. Moreover, Omni’s study found that Facebook and Reddit were the second and fourth most referenced sources that compiled AI Overviews, and more frequently sourced for inaccurate overviews. Lord save us.
Like anything online, AI is open to abuse beyond ‘slop’. Marketers are aware that AI itself can be conned with fake articles and if people want to be discovered as a world expert on something then publishing blogs and articles about their prowess in a certain field will enable them appear in Google’s AI Overview. Google, however, says they are aware of this and have mitigated the chances of this happening. Despite this, in the same NYT article above, it states that in February this year (2026) journalist Thomas Germain spent twenty minutes publishing an article about the Best Tech Journalists at Eating Hot Dogs to find that a day later Google cited him as the best journalist hot dog eater and how he had gained notoriety for his performances in competitive eating events. He did rather well in the South Dakota competition. This makes it clear that AI Overview has its flaws, but despite this it can still have benefits providing it is used properly and to a greater extent beyond that which it tells you.
As with best use of online reviews covered in the last article, AI Overviews are great if used with a bit of intelligence. In a recent foray (Sue would say ‘frenzy’) of purchasing outboard sound recording add-on modules, AI Overviews featured a lot in my research. They were pretty useful at doing what they do, i.e. giving an overview of the products. They gave a summary of what they were, a list of key features, pros and cons, review verdicts, and a link to a ‘trusted’ source. All useful stuff. But, AI Overview is exactly that – an overview. It’s not gospel. At no point was that the end of my research, and nor did I take what they said at face value. They were a useful springboard to researching other sources, reading retailer websites that I know to be reputable, and then coming to my own decision about which ones to buy. Using AI Overviews as a starting point for further investigation is a great tool, but not enquiring further could leave you at the mercy of one of the 1.3 billion dodgy results each day. Even Google itself, as a disclaimer, and a possibly inadvertant admission, says that AI Overviews may be inaccurate so further research may be necessary and recommends double-checking AI Overview results.
As regards SEO, taking advantage of AI Overview and coming up in searches, that’s another article. If you’re wondering, it still involves having a website, still having great regular content that’s accurate and genuinely useful, still being authentic and believable, still having an SEO strategy (or strategist) that gives your site value, and having a desire to use this new tool properly. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to write another article about my life as a highly successful secret dressmaker to the glitterati of the British movie scene. Sort of like Banksy. But with frocks.
Author: Rich
