AI Overviews are halving your clicks — what local businesses do now

If your organic traffic fell this year and nothing on your site changed, this is almost certainly why. Google now answers a large share of searches directly on the results page, and the link that used to earn the click sits below the answer — if it gets shown at all.

The size of it

• Pew Research found users clicked a result on 8% of searches where an AI Overview appeared, against 15% where one did not. Close to half the clicks, gone.
• A Carnegie Mellon and Indian School of Business paper measured roughly a 40% decline in outbound organic clicks on affected queries.
• AI Overviews now appear on somewhere between 13% and 20% of queries depending on whose measurement you take, and the share is climbing.

The pattern matters more than any single number: informational queries lose clicks fastest, transactional ones least. 'How much do modular kitchens cost' gets answered on the page. 'Interior designer in Baner' still sends people somewhere.

What this changes for a local business

Most SEO advice tells you to publish more. That advice is now actively wrong for informational content — you would be writing pages for queries Google intends to answer itself.

Four things that still earn the click

• The map pack. An AI Overview does not replace the three businesses on the map, and 'near me' intent still routes there. This is why your Google Business Profile matters more this year than last.
• Transactional queries. Nobody's AI Overview books your site visit. Pages built around 'book', 'cost', 'near me' and locality keep converting.
• Being cited. If the overview names you, you get the credibility even without the click — and a meaningful share of readers search your brand afterwards.
• Proprietary data. A summary can restate general advice. It cannot invent your account's cost per lead, so pages carrying real numbers survive better than pages carrying opinions.

Why generic content is now the worst investment

An article titled 'Top 10 digital marketing tips' is exactly what an AI Overview replaces — it is a summary of summaries. The pages that survive carry something a model cannot generate: a specific account, a named city, a real screenshot, a number you measured.

We publish our own campaign figures for that reason. Across seven Pune interior studios: 300 leads on ₹44,252 of ad spend, blending to ₹147.51 per lead. Any model can tell you Meta ads generate leads. None of them can tell you what a Pune interior lead cost last quarter, because that number exists in one ad account.

Measuring it honestly

Impressions holding steady while clicks fall is the signature. Check Search Console for queries where impressions are flat or rising and CTR has dropped — that is where an overview has appeared above you.

And change what you count. Ranking position matters less than it did. Track branded search volume, direct traffic, calls and WhatsApp enquiries — the places demand shows up when the click never happens.

The short version

Stop writing for questions Google will answer itself. Put the effort into your Business Profile, into pages built for transactional intent, and into publishing data only you have. Half the clicks are gone from informational queries; almost none are gone from someone searching for a designer in their own suburb.