How to gain visibility in Google AI Overviews

The topic is extremely current: if your company or site is not mentioned within these AI blocks, you are losing visibility, clicks, and above all, opportunities to strengthen your authority in the sector.

In this post, I have summarized in detail the main concepts that emerged during the meeting, enriching them with examples, source references, explanatory charts, and useful tools. A complete guide for those who want to gain visibility in the new era of AI-based search.

Every time you search on Google, you are likely to see an AI Overview: an AI-generated answer that summarizes content from the best sources. If your site or company is not mentioned in these blocks, you are losing visibility, clicks, and opportunities to strengthen your brand.

As stated by Neil Patel, co-founder of NP Digital, “if you aren’t mentioned, your competitor will be.”

From Keyword-Based SEO to Topic-Based SEO

In past years, SEO revolved around keywords: simply inserting them in the title tag, meta description, and text was enough to get results. Today, the game has changed. According to Patel, modern SEO is a “game of topics.” Google rewards sites that organize content in a coherent and in-depth manner.

Imagine a library: all SEO books should be in the same section, along with those on link building and keyword research. The same applies to your website.

A well-organized and thematically coherent site has a much higher chance of being considered by Google’s AI.

The visibility landscape is more competitive than ever

According to data shared during the webinar, over 67% of “above the fold” space on Google is occupied by AI Overviews, featured snippets, and paid advertising. This drastically reduces the space for traditional organic results. Nevertheless, Google continues to generate over 13 billion searches a day, and data (source: Danny Sullivan) shows that organic traffic has actually increased.

Google vs. Generative AI: It’s not a war, it’s coexistence

While tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity AI focus on informational searches, Google remains dominant for navigational, commercial, and transactional ones. According to the speakers, Google is used 8 times more often for transactional searches compared to ChatGPT.

People want immediate answers, and Google is providing them faster and faster, which is why the number of daily queries per user is also growing.

How AI Overviews work: Anatomy and criteria

An AI Overview usually has:

• About 170 words
• 5 to 8 cited sources (but can reach up to 20)
• Sources taken from the top 10–12 positions in organic results

A very strong correlation has been noted between Featured Snippets and AI Overviews. Informational queries are the ones that trigger them most easily.

Focus on conversational and long-tail queries

Long, conversational, and low-competition searches are becoming increasingly relevant. According to a study by BrightEdge (2024), queries with more words saw a significant increase in the presence of AI Overviews between September and January.

What type of content works?

The content that performs best in AI Overviews includes:

• Practical guides
• Step-by-step answers
• “How to” content
• Clear, authoritative, and scannable text

This is particularly true in the health & wellness sector, but it applies to all industries. The winning approach is “user-first.”

The growing importance of video content (especially YouTube)

Videos are gaining ground in AI Overviews. According to BrightEdge, there has been a 21% month-over-month increase in the citation of video content. Google is starting to directly search for and cite YouTube content.

If you aren’t producing video yet, now is the right time to start. Particularly effective are:

• Video tutorials
• Visual demos
• Product comparisons

YouTube is the second most used search engine in the world, right after Google (source: Statista).

Google’s AI Mode: The new era of search

In March 2025, Google officially launched AI Mode, an experimental search experience that integrates AI answers directly into the SERP. The goal is to offer more complete, contextual, and immediate answers. It is as if ChatGPT and Google Search had merged: you can ask follow-up questions, get automatic summaries, and follow a conversation with the AI.

Example: searching for “San Diego news this week,” instead of clicking on 10 articles, Google AI Mode directly provides a summary of the main news stories.

It is currently available in preview for Google One AI Premium users and via Search Labs (US only).

The new SEO goal: Being cited directly by AI Overviews

Getting cited in AI Overviews represents the new metric to monitor. It is no longer just about ranking, but about:

• Citation frequency
• Brand recognizability
• Authority perceived by Google AI

Example: NP Digital is positioned as a top agency in AI results for the query “award-winning global digital marketing agency.”

Operational strategies to be included in AI Overviews

(already present in previous paragraphs)

Brand authority and reputation: The invisible but crucial asset

AI Overviews do not yet use brand authority as a direct ranking factor, but it is evident that content coming from authoritative sources like:

• Wikipedia
• NIH (National Institutes of Health)
• Mayo Clinic
• YouTube

is cited more frequently. Building brand authority now means preparing for the future:

• Create in-depth, well-structured, and original content
• Get citations from relevant publications and sites in your sector
• Participate in interviews, conferences, and industry publications

Authority is not (just) a backlink, but a reputation built over time through consistent and useful visibility.

Local optimization for AI Overviews

After temporarily removing Local Packs from AI Overviews in 2023, Google reintroduced the local component. Now AI Mode clearly shows geolocated results. Therefore:

• Ensure your Google Business profile is updated
• Get recent and positive reviews
• Reply to user comments
• Use LocalBusiness schema
• Optimize for local queries (e.g., “pediatric dentist Milan”)

Reviews on platforms like Yelp, Google, Reddit, and forums are used by LLMs to decide whether to recommend a business.

KPIs for the AI era: What to measure today

SEO metrics are evolving. Beyond ranking, you should monitor:

• Citation frequency in AI Overviews
• Brand mentions in AI content
• Organic visibility in AI Mode
• Interactions per touchpoint: how many touchpoints a user has with your brand before converting
• Brand trends: use Google Trends to see if searches for your brand are increasing

Mistakes to avoid absolutely

1. Creating content in bulk without strategy: worsens thematic confusion and dilutes authority
2. Optimizing only for keywords: AI understands context and semantics, not just exact words
3. Neglecting video and multimedia content
4. Updating content arbitrarily: a strategic audit is needed
5. Ignoring collaboration between SEO, Paid, and PR departments: silos slow down performance

Conclusion

The era of artificial intelligence in search has already begun. AI Overviews are not just a technological novelty, but a radical shift in how content is discovered, synthesized, and presented. Optimizing for these new spaces means rethinking content, structure, authority, and formats.

Those who move first—with strategy, creativity, and rigor—will gain enormous advantages in terms of traffic, visibility, and trust.

Start today. Optimize for AI Overviews, but without forgetting the SEO basics: valuable content, technically solid, and with a unique voice in the market.