With AI Overviews Appearing Less Often, SAIO Is Still Very Much “Worth It”

DBE recently covered the latest report from BrightEdge that says AI Overviews show on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) less than 7% of the time. Advanced Web Ranking (AWR – the tool DBE uses to track keyword rankings and visibility) recently reported that about 12% of the 8,000 keyword searches analyzed displayed AI Overviews.

Whether it’s showing 7% or 12% of the time, AI Overviews volume is far below expectations generated during its test phase as Search Generative Experience (SGE). Back then, BrightEdge reported AI Overviews could be showing as much as 75% of the time. But let’s take a different look at the numbers before dismissing the impact of AI Overviews and Search AI Optimization (SAIO) strategies:

• There are 8.5 billion Google searches daily. If only 12% of those searches result in displaying AI Overviews, how many searches are we talking about? *Pause while you do the math.* Over 1 billion. Do you want to miss out on that opportunity for highly valuable search visibility?

• And while Google is still the dominant “search engine” over Bing, it is not nearly as dominant in the Gen AI space.
  • Over 100 million people use Bing Copilot every day.
  • ChatGPT has 100 million weekly active users.
  • Perplexity currently racks up over 50 million visits per month.

The opportunity to achieve SAIO visibility extends beyond AI Overviews. And DBE’s SAIO strategies are designed to universally achieve results in all gen AI platforms. So, yes, SAIO is absolutely a must-have complement to SEO.