If you’ve been on LinkedIn lately, you’ve in all probability seen this meme, with good SEO and GEO greatest practices held up as the identical image.
Underneath the joke (and the confusion) is an actual query each enterprise proprietor is now asking: how do you present up in AI Overviews? These are the AI-generated solutions now sitting on the high of around 60% of Google search results.
The new Google replace on optimizing for AI search guarantees to make the trail clearer, however for those who’re a enterprise proprietor with out an in-house SEO crew, it raises simply as many questions as solutions, together with:
- Is my present SEO work nonetheless doing something, or do I want so as to add generative engine optimization (GEO) to my content material?
- What does Google really need me to try this I’m not already doing? Their official information lists the necessities, however skips the off-page work you’ve heard elsewhere.
- How do I do know which recommendation is greatest for my enterprise? Every different social media put up is promoting “GEO services”, which appears to contradict what Google simply printed.
The downside is, half of the SEO world agrees with the meme, and the opposite half insists there’s way more to the story.
In this text, we’re going to do what neither camp is doing: clarify what the Google information really says, the place we agree with it (and the place we don’t), and provide you with a usable playbook for triggering AI-powered Overviews to say your model.
We use skilled views and our personal expertise getting manufacturers cited as the reply to assist this – so you possibly can cease guessing which image to go for and begin triggering citations.
We’ll cowl:
- Understanding the AI Overview shift
- What Google’s new information says (and the place it falls brief)
- How to point out up in AI Overviews with SEO 2.0
- Go from rating on Google to being the reply Google provides with Mint Position
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Wondering find out how to present up in AI Overviews? Book a no-cost consultation with the Mint Position crew, and we’ll present you the way we’re getting manufacturers into AI-generated solutions.
Understanding the AI Overview shift
Love them or hate them, Google’s AI overviews (AIO) now pop up on 60% of their search outcomes pages, greater than double that of 2025.
The Growth of AIOs
Source: SE Ranking
The common AIO can also be greater now: fairly actually, standing at 1,200 pixels tall. Sitting proper on the high of search outcomes, this is sufficient to push extra natural outcomes underneath the fold than ever.
Yet the deeper story is what’s occurring inside these overviews. The Gemini 3 rollout has changed nearly half of the beforehand cited domains, and AIOs now pull in a 3rd extra sources per response.
In brief, we’re seeing a giant change in who will get cited, even for manufacturers that didn’t change a factor on their finish.
So, what does this imply for your enterprise? Well, on searches the place an AIO triggers, clicks to the highest natural outcome drop by 58%, and that determine was 34.5% simply ten months in the past, based on Tim Soulo, CMO at Ahrefs. And that development seems to be accelerating, essentially altering SEO within the course of.
Google’s first place was once your aim: now it’s to look inside the reply sitting above it.
Note that there’s one caveat to all this: it applies nearly totally to informational searches. Some 99.9% of AIO-triggering queries are informational, based on the above analysis, whereas procuring searches see them simply 3.2% of the time.
If your consumers kind informational queries, AIOs matter enormously. If their search has extra industrial intent like “buy [product]”, then much less so.
What Google’s new information says (and the place it falls brief)
On May 15, 2026, the primary official Google guidance on optimizing for AI search appeared on-line.
First, we must always notice a key level. Google’s information is about rating for all generative AI search, together with ChatGPT and Claude, in addition to its personal Gemini and AIOs.
We’re focusing particularly on triggering AI Overviews on this article, so we’ll be filtering by a narrower lens.
That slim lens issues greater than you’d assume: for a similar question, Google’s AI Mode and AI Overviews attain related conclusions 86% of the time, even when their citations overlap by simply 13.7%, based on Soulo’s analysis. They would possibly give the identical solutions, however the sources they use for them are usually completely different.
In different phrases, optimizing particularly for AI Overviews is a definite self-discipline, and the one with the clearest, most actionable alerts for content material creators right now.
Besides, who higher to inform you find out how to win on Google than Google?
The information lists clear content material conditions that apply to AIOs, together with:
- Foundational SEO, so ensuring content material is indexable, snippet-eligible, and technically sound
- Unique and first-hand factors of view, these (as ever) beat generic abstract content material
- Images, video, and enterprise information that develop your floor space inside AIOs
- Structured information, together with customary schema markup.
If all this sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of it’s good SEO hygiene that top-ranking manufacturers have been utilizing for years.
The information additionally lists what it says you don’t want to look in AI search outcomes. Some of those could shock you.
- AI-specific llms.txt recordsdata
- Content “chunking”, or breaking pages into bite-sized items for simpler AI extraction
- AI-specific schema
- Rewriting your web site for machines, with Google saying its AI can deal with synonyms and conversational phrasing.
Here’s the place it will get attention-grabbing. A number of of those “don’t need” gadgets are price a re-assessment, as a result of not needing one thing doesn’t imply it’s ineffective.
“Google says you don’t need llms.txt or special AI markup. That’s true – as a prerequisite. But ‘not needed’ isn’t the same as ‘not helpful,’” says Justin Calderón, founding father of Mint Position. “It’s like XML sitemaps. Google doesn’t strictly need one, but no serious SEO skips them.”
This isn’t one thing new, both. Google hasn’t at all times been express about gameable alerts previously.
“Google has a long, well-documented history of nudging the industry in directions that benefit Google first and the open web maybe,” says Mike King, founder and CEO of iPullRank, a New York-based SEO and content material technique company.
That’s to not say the Google information is flawed – removed from it. But it in all probability isn’t giving us the total image or, not less than, probably the most strategically helpful one.
“Google has forever been in a constant battle with the website owners and content creators it relies on to evolve its search algorithm so that it can’t be gamed,” says Eric Doty, Head of Marketing at Dock, a income enablement platform. “Some signals are only useful to Google if the rest of us are not intentionally optimizing for them.”
So, what does this strategic image appear to be? At Mint Position, we name it SEO 2.0, and the subsequent part covers how you need to use it to set off your subsequent AI Overview.
How to Show Up in AI Overviews With SEO 2.0
Let’s begin with the excellent news.
The methods to look in AI overviews are extra layered than conventional SEO, however they’re not mysterious — when you settle for that rating on Google (the aim of SEO) is now simply the 1st step.
Without this, you gained’t be the reply that AI Overviews flip to (AEO) or get cited by AI instruments like ChatGPT or Claude (GEO).
Together, they cowl the total image of what it takes right now.
The three layers of SEO 2.0
1. Traditional SEO
This first layer is all the things we’ve simply walked by: the SEO prerequisites (crawlable hyperlinks, technical SEO, people-first, bottom-of-the-funnel content, and so forth.) which have at all times been vital.
Get these flawed and nothing else issues – you merely gained’t seem in AIOs.
2. GEO
Here’s the place we begin to transfer towards getting cited by AI. Google’s information doesn’t point out this, however the strongest sign towards exhibiting up in an AI Overview really isn’t in your web page, however on different websites.
Ahrefs’ study of 75,000 brands discovered a shocking 66% correlation between model mentions and AIO appearances, 3 times stronger than that of backlinks (22%). “Citations are the new backlinks,” as Ahrefs CMO Tim Soulo put it.
How Brand Mentions Top the AIO Correlation Study
This varieties the backbone of our GEO pillar, together with work that will get you talked about throughout the online, together with skilled contributions and digital PR, like visitor posting and conventional press releases.
These feed each AIOs and different AI instruments on the identical time – each varieties of engines like google could use completely different retrieval programs, however they’re in search of the identical factor: manufacturers that the online takes critically.
“Digital PR and guest posting — what we call earned content — has become much more important,” says Justin. “Backlinks aren’t dead. They just have a louder cousin now.”
There’s an vital factor to level out right here. Google warns about utilizing “inauthentic mentions”, or shopping for them from low-cost directories. This flags the spam programs of each main AI platform, which positively gained’t lead to a point out, because the snippet beneath states.
3. AEO
For every AIO, Google pulls from a community of associated sub-queries and builds the response from net pages protecting the entire subject cluster.
They name this the “Query fan-out” and content material that makes it into this fan is 161% extra more likely to be cited than pages that solely rank for the preliminary search time period, based on search specialists SurferSEO.
How “Fan-Out” Content Is Much More Likely to Feature in AIOs
Source: SurferSEO
SEO 2.0’s AEO layer is triggered by question fanouts — associated sub-questions Google generates from a single search — that means your content material wants to reply not simply the first key phrase however the cluster of questions surrounding it. Structuring content material with FAQ sections that mirror these associated queries, making certain to focus on a number of secondary key phrases, and writing headings that match how consumers really search, provides AI engines the verbatim elevate factors they should embrace your web page in an Overview.
This can also be the place “chunking” comes into play, even when Google says you don’t need to. Content that’s damaged down into bite-sized, direct solutions (bullet factors may help) provides Gemini cleaner materials to elevate. It’s not rewriting for machines, however merely writing extra clearly.
Practitioners working their very own checks are seeing the identical sample.
“My team tested both formats on the same topics after the May 2026 AI optimization guide came out. The short answers get 15% more AIO visibility,” says Charles Noble, founding father of Hetneo, who has spent 17 years in SEO and hyperlink constructing.
“I pick one specific query, answer it directly in the first 50 words with a clear verdict, then put a verifiable data point or named source behind it. Google’s AIO generator lifts those tightly scoped answers over broader content every time.”
Charles’s quotation charge moved from 1 in 20 queries to 1 in 8 after the shift, regardless that Google’s official steerage nonetheless pushes complete content material.
The widespread thread
There’s one high-quality thread that connects these three phases – one thing Eric Doty handily refers to as “non-commodity content”. This refers back to the lived experiences that AI can’t regurgitate, together with:
- Original analysis
- Proprietary information, together with visuals like charts and graphs
- First-hand experience and factors of view.
Both Google and AI engines have at all times favored such a authoritative content material, a part of what we name Journalistic SEO, as a result of they’re each designed to favor dependable sources – and reliability comes from an actual particular person with actual experience behind the phrases.
Structured information performs a task right here, too. An AI-specific schema might not be crucial, as Google says. The Ahrefs examine discovered that, in AIOs, the metric even dipped by 4.6% after implementing AI schemas.
Still, customary schemas like Article and Author markup are price holding, as they assist AI programs join your content material to verified entities, authors, and publication dates.
Go from rating on Google to being the reply Google provides with Mint Position
There’s now an uncomfortable fact about rating first on Google: most of your audience gained’t click on in your blue hyperlink anymore.
You will, nevertheless, stand a great probability of showing within the AI Overview above you, particularly for those who comply with the SEO 2.0 playbook we’ve laid out above.
“The companies that treat GEO as a bolt-on will keep chasing,” says Justin Calderón. “The ones that built it into their SEO from the start? They’re already there.”
That’s the work Mint Position has been doing with corporations for years, lengthy earlier than Google confirmed what we already knew of their latest replace. That is, exhibiting up in AI search continues to be constructed on SEO – it simply doesn’t finish there.
With our SEO 2.0 strategy, our companions are already exhibiting up within the AI Overviews that their opponents try to crack.
In our personal class, Mint Position earns extra citations per AI response than any of the best SEO agencies we observe.
This is as a result of the foundations we’ve at all times constructed on, together with expert-led content material and journalistic SEO, occur to be precisely what AI search rewards.
The manufacturers that discover ways to present up in AI Overviews now will personal the reply for years. The relaxation will maintain chasing the clicking.
Ready to see how one can get extra clients from AI search? Get in touch with us, and we’ll present you find out how to develop your visibility in AIOs and LLMs.
FAQs
Do I want an llms.txt file for Google AI Overviews?
If you’re making an attempt to work out find out how to seem in AI overviews, you’ll see that Google’s new information says that llms.txt isn’t essential. But that doesn’t imply it doesn’t assist massive language fashions parse your web site sooner and perceive your enterprise higher.
Like XML sitemaps, it’s not a rating sign, however it’s a fast and good transfer for any enterprise severe about AI SEO technique.
Is AI Overview optimization completely different from conventional rating SEO?
Judging from our work over the previous 4 years, we’ve seen there’s a big overlap between conventional SEO (clear technical SEO, backlink building, authoritative content material) and AIO. But we estimate round a 3rd of the work to be new, which is what we goal inside SEO 2.0 – the model mentions, question fan-out protection, and content material structured to be lifted into AI-generated summaries.
How do I measure AI Overview’s rank monitoring?
This ought to solely take you a couple of minutes. Go to Google Search Console’s AI Mode filter and add a ten-word (or extra) regex to deliver up informational queries triggering AIOs. Let’s say you’re a BNPL fintech model. This could possibly be “How does buy now pay later affect my credit score?” Next, add a customized GA4 channel for AI referral site visitors, and also you’ll then have the ability to see how a lot site visitors Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are literally sending you
Tools like Otterly.ai or SE Ranking provide you with deeper metrics, together with share of voice and quotation monitoring throughout AI programs. These begin at round $25/month.
Will AI Overviews kill my natural site visitors?
We’ve seen that click-through charges drop by as much as 61% when AIOs set off, which results in many zero-click searches. Yet manufacturers cited inside AI-generated solutions seize extra clicks than uncited opponents, and AI-driven referral site visitors sometimes converts at larger charges than natural search.
How lengthy till I see outcomes from optimizing for AI Overviews?
It all is dependent upon the kind of optimization:
- Structural adjustments (fast solutions, FAQ sections, inside hyperlinks, headings rewritten for AI search) can present up in GSC inside a number of weeks.
- The off-page layer (model mentions, topical depth, digital PR) sometimes takes as much as six months.
The manufacturers profitable AIOs right now began this work 12 to 18 months in the past.
Also price realizing: AIOs are risky, altering on common each 2.15 days, with round 70% of the wording and sources shifting between variations, based on the Ahrefs examine. Don’t panic for those who drop out of 1: constant presence over weeks issues greater than any single snapshot.
