AI Overviews Currently Appear for 83% of Branded Searches

Type your company name into Google. Before your website shows up, there is a good chance Google has already written its own summary of who you are, what you sell and what it costs. And it may be quoting a YouTube reviewer instead of you.

Fresh research from Ahrefs shows how fast this is happening. AI Overviews, the AI-generated answers at the top of Google results, now appear on the large majority of branded searches. That changes who controls the first impression of your brand, and it changes what your marketing has to do about it.

Here is what the data says, why it matters, and what I would do about it if this were my brand.

AI Overviews now show up on most branded searches

Ahrefs analyzed 232.8 million US desktop Google results collected from July through September 2026. That included 92.5 million results for branded keywords and 140.2 million for non-branded keywords.

On September 29, 2026, AI Overviews appeared in 82.91% of US desktop results for branded keywords. That is where the 83% headline comes from. It is a single-day snapshot, so the monthly averages tell the steadier story:

Month (2026)	Branded keywords with an AI Overview	Non-branded keywords with an AI Overview
July	61.3%	73.5%
August	65.1%	74.7%
September	73.3%	78.3%

Branded searches climbed 12 percentage points in three months, roughly 20% growth over July’s rate. Non-branded searches rose too, but only by 4.8 points.

That is a real reversal. In an earlier Ahrefs study from November 2025, AI Overviews were far more common on non-branded searches than branded ones. Different samples, so treat the comparison as directional, but the direction is hard to miss. The gap between branded and non-branded queries shrank from 12.2 points in July to 5 points in September.

On brand-name searches, the AI answer usually takes the top spot

Where an AI Overview appears matters as much as whether it appears. Every AI Overview cuts into clicks. In an earlier study, Ahrefs found a 58% lower click-through rate for the top-ranking page when one was present. The worst case is an AI Overview sitting in position one for your own name, above your own website.

To measure that, Ahrefs tracked exact-name searches for 100 brands from Interbrand’s Best Global Brands 2025 list (bare names like “bluehost”) at 14 weekly checkpoints from July through September. This was a separate sample from the larger study above.

The jump came fast in September. On July 1, only five of 98 usable results had an AI Overview. By September 30, 63 of the 100 brand-name searches did.

Of those 63 AI Overviews, 48 (76.2%) appeared in position one, with an average position of 1.49. Google could move them lower later. For now, on a brand’s own name, the AI answer is usually the first thing a searcher sees, ahead of the brand’s website.

Wikipedia, YouTube and LinkedIn are telling your story

The bigger risk is not the AI answer itself. It is where that answer gets its information. When Google summarizes your brand, it may lean on sources you do not own, and in the worst case, on a competitor.

In the same 100-brand panel, the most-cited outside sources (sites other than the brand being searched) were Wikipedia, YouTube and LinkedIn. Wikipedia led at 71.9% of the AI Overviews with source lists, followed by YouTube at 38.6% and LinkedIn at 22.8%.

Wikipedia is at least a fairly neutral source for most brands. YouTube and LinkedIn are a different story. Anyone can post a video review or a LinkedIn take about your company, and you have far less control over those than over the pages on your own site.

Here is the AI Overview for Bluehost, with YouTube videos heavily represented among the sources:

There is some good news. Of the AI Overviews where the full text was visible, only two of 58 (3.4%) explicitly discussed competitors. Pepsi’s answer mentioned Coca-Cola in the context of the “cola wars,” and Intel’s named TSMC and NVIDIA. Across 57 source lists, only one verified competitor-owned website was cited. For now, Google mostly avoids sourcing your brand story from your competitors.

Why this matters for your brand

Let’s be real: a branded search is the warmest traffic you will ever get. That person already knows your name. They are looking for your pricing, your login, your phone number or a reason to pick you. If Google answers them with a summary built from someone else’s content, you have lost control of the moment that matters most.

Chris Long put it plainly on LinkedIn: “competitors/external sources can now control the narrative of your brand directly in the search results.” Ann Smarty raised a related problem with the videos cited in these answers. They often are not from the brand’s official channel and “may very well include outdated product information.”

Google changes when and how AI Overviews appear all the time, so none of these numbers are permanent. But the trend is clear. Google is putting AI Overviews on every results page that will tolerate one, and branded searches are now firmly in that group. Plan for it.

What to do about it

You cannot turn AI Overviews off for your brand. You can make sure the sources Google pulls from say the right things. That is the core of AI search optimization, and it starts with a few practical moves:

• Make your own site the clearest answer. Your pricing, services, locations, contact details and FAQs should be easy to find, current and written in plain language. If your site is vague, Google will look elsewhere.
• Own your YouTube presence. If YouTube is one of the most-cited sources, your official channel should have current product, service and customer videos. Otherwise, someone else’s video gets to define you.
• Keep your LinkedIn and third-party profiles consistent. Your company page, leadership profiles, directory listings and Wikipedia entry (if you have one) should describe the business the same way your website does.
• Watch your branded results every month. Search your brand name, product names and “brand + pricing” or “brand + reviews.” Note what the AI Overview says and which sources it cites.
• Fix the sources, not just the symptoms. If an outdated video or article keeps getting cited, publish a current, better answer on a channel you control.

How to check your brand’s AI Overviews in Ahrefs

If you use Ahrefs, you can see which of your branded keywords trigger an AI Overview. In Site Explorer, open the Organic Keywords report. Under Intents, choose Branded keywords. Then click Add filter, choose SERP features, and select AI Overviews.

Click Show results to see every branded keyword your domain ranks for that also shows an AI Overview. In the Bluehost example, that includes its brand name and login searches.

To see what those AI Overviews actually say, which competitors they mention and which sites they cite, use Ahrefs Brand Radar. Enter your brand, and it will suggest competitors and competing domains to track alongside you.

Open the AI responses report and filter for AI Overviews that mention your brand.

Click Apply, and you will get a list of AI Overviews with their full text, plus the brands mentioned and the domains cited in each one.

Don’t have Ahrefs? Start manually. Search your brand name and your top three branded phrases in a private browser window, screenshot the AI Overview, and list every source it cites. That alone will show you where your story is being told without you.

The bottom line

Your brand name used to be the one search you could count on winning. That is no longer guaranteed. Google’s AI is now the first voice many buyers hear when they search for you, and it is building that answer from whatever sources it trusts most.

If you want to know what Google is saying about your brand and how to fix it, book a strategy call. We’ll review your branded search results, show you which sources are shaping them, and lay out what to fix first.

Source: Ahrefs, “AI Overviews Currently Appear for 83% of Branded Searches,” October 2026. All charts, data and Ahrefs tool screenshots are based on that study.