How Google AI Overviews Are Reshaping PPC Strategy

AI Overviews are beginning to reshape how users interact with Google search — and it’s having a noticeable effect on advertisers. A recent analysis by Adthena, covering 10 million search engine results pages (SERPs), has revealed just how much ground brands are losing in this changing environment.

Google’s rollout of AI-generated Overviews is having a disruptive impact on search results. Paid advertisements and traditional organic links are now being pushed further down the page, which can mean fewer clicks and less visibility for businesses relying on search traffic.

The shift towards generative search technology is creating new challenges for marketers. As AI Overviews take up more prominent space on search results pages, many advertisers are finding that their tried-and-tested strategies are no longer as effective.

To better understand the scale and pace of this transformation, Adthena examined data across five major sectors: Retail, Travel, Finance, Healthcare, and Automotive. This deep-dive study combined real-world customer feedback with live SERP data to assess how search marketing is being affected.

The findings suggest that advertisers need to rethink their current approaches to stay relevant. With fewer users scrolling past AI-generated answers, it’s becoming harder for both paid and organic listings to get noticed.

This blog explores the key takeaways from Adthena’s research and offers practical insights into how brands can adapt. Whether you’re managing PPC campaigns or developing long-term SEO plans, staying informed is crucial as search continues to evolve.

What are AI Overviews and why they matter

AI Overviews are Google’s latest feature designed to generate instant, summarised responses to user search queries. These overviews now appear prominently on search engine results pages (SERPs), usually right at the top, offering quick answers that combine artificial intelligence with information from various online sources.

Unlike traditional features such as featured snippets or knowledge panels, AI Overviews function differently in both design and impact. For example, featured snippets typically extract content directly from a single webpage, while knowledge panels rely on structured data pulled from databases like Wikipedia.

In contrast, AI Overviews use real-time data to blend information from multiple sources into a single response. This synthesis of content allows for more comprehensive answers, but it also introduces new complexities for search visibility.

Because of their prime position on the results page, AI Overviews are extremely influential. However, this prominence comes at a cost: they often push both paid ads and organic listings further down the page. As a result, brands and advertisers must begin re-evaluating how they stay visible in an increasingly AI-driven search landscape.

Impact on Google Ads performance and auction dynamics

As Google’s AI Overviews take up more space at the top of search results, fewer users are clicking on traditional adverts. This shift is causing a noticeable drop in click-through rates (CTR) for important search terms and could eventually affect ad performance by lowering Quality Scores.

With premium ad placements becoming scarcer, competition among advertisers is intensifying. Brands are having to bid more aggressively to maintain visibility, leading to rising cost-per-click (CPC) rates and more unpredictable auction results.

The impact of AI Overviews varies across different industries, with some sectors experiencing more disruption than others. For example, in retail, shopping ads are increasingly being pushed below AI-generated content, limiting their visibility above the fold. While it’s still possible for a brand to appear in both paid and organic results, it’s now much harder to dominate the entire page.

In the travel sector, searches related to planning and advice — such as “best family holidays in Greece” — often trigger AI Overviews, which now sit above both organic results and ads. This makes it more difficult for brands to compete for attention in high-intent queries.

For finance, AI Overviews are appearing mostly in broad, informational searches, rather than branded ones. This means companies in this space aren’t yet seeing major disruptions for direct brand-related queries — though this could change over time.

The healthcare sector is seeing AI Overviews take over queries like “what is [drug name] used for?” These top-level, informational searches are being dominated by AI summaries, pushing medical content and ads further down the page.

In the automotive industry, AI-generated comparison content is beginning to appear more frequently. These summaries are effectively shifting the research phase of the buying journey higher up on the SERP, reducing visibility for traditional listings.

What the data shows: Adthena’s Search Intelligence

To truly grasp the influence of Google’s AI Overviews, Adthena’s data science team analysed over 10.4 million search results pages (SERPs) across a five-day period. This analysis provided valuable insight into how AI Overviews are beginning to reshape search engine results across key global regions, including the UK, US, Australia, and the European Union.

The study focused on 450,000 search terms used by 25 global enterprise-level brands, spanning five major industries: Retail, Travel, Finance, Healthcare, and Automotive. The aim was to understand the frequency of AI Overviews and the types of queries most likely to trigger them.

Specifically, the research sought to find out how often AI Overviews appear, what kind of searches prompt them, and whether these generative answers are more likely to be shown for brand-specific or general (generic) queries.

One of the key findings was that the length of a search query plays a major role in whether an AI Overview appears. The data showed a near-linear relationship—longer search terms are much more likely to trigger an AI-generated summary.

Retail and Travel, for instance, don’t tend to show AI Overviews unless the search query is relatively long and detailed. In contrast, Healthcare stands out as an industry where AI Overviews frequently appear—even for shorter, simpler queries.

A breakdown of the data by query length and industry revealed an important trend: across all sectors, longer-tail queries are more likely to result in AI-generated summaries. Retail, in particular, showed a high proportion of AI Overviews for the lengthiest queries, suggesting that highly specific searches are most impacted.

Healthcare proved to be a unique case. Even short queries in this sector often prompted AI-generated responses, suggesting a higher level of saturation across the board. This makes Healthcare one of the most heavily impacted industries in terms of generative content in search.

When Adthena’s data was analysed by industry, it became even more clear which sectors are most exposed. Healthcare leads significantly, with nearly half—around 50%—of all relevant search queries producing an AI Overview.

Financial Services followed behind, with just under 30% of searches triggering an AI response. The Automotive sector saw AI Overviews in about 16% of queries, while Retail and Travel lagged far behind at only 7.8% and 4.6% respectively.

This indicates that while AI Overviews are being rolled out across industries, the pace and extent of that rollout varies dramatically. Some sectors are already facing major disruption, while others remain largely unaffected for now.

Further analysis looked at whether AI Overviews were being triggered more often on branded terms or generic ones. This breakdown revealed some striking differences.

In Financial Services, for example, almost 30% of generic searches featured an AI Overview, but none of the branded terms did. This suggests that brand-specific queries are still relatively protected in that industry.

Similarly, in both Retail and Travel, AI Overviews were only triggered by generic search terms. Branded searches in these sectors were not impacted, at least for the time being.

Healthcare, however, is an exception to this trend. It not only had the highest overall incidence of AI Overviews, but also the highest rate of branded searches displaying these summaries. Nearly 40% of brand-specific queries in Healthcare returned AI-generated content.

This raises concerns about brand control in the Healthcare space. If even branded searches are now showing generative summaries, it may become more difficult for organisations to ensure that users see accurate and brand-aligned information.

Overall, the data suggests that Google’s AI Overviews are already reshaping search dynamics in meaningful ways, especially in industries where informational content is a key driver of traffic. The effects are uneven across sectors, but all businesses should be aware of how generative search is evolving—and begin adapting their strategies accordingly.

Shedding light with Adthena’s Search Landscape Dashboard

As AI Overviews and other evolving features rapidly reshape how search results are presented, advertisers need a clearer view of how these changes are affecting their sector specifically.

Adthena’s Search Landscape dashboard offers a live and customised view of how the search engine results page (SERP) is changing within your own market. Whether it’s AI-generated overviews, Product Listings, Hotel Packs, or Flight Ads, this tool shows which SERP features are becoming more prominent – and which ones are fading – across your most important keywords and competitors.

Because it’s tailored to your business, you’ll gain insights that are relevant to your category. For example, a travel brand might spot hotel or flight features pushing paid ads lower down the page. A retailer could see when product listings are replaced by AI summaries. A pharmaceutical advertiser might notice an increase in AI Overviews for symptom-related queries.

As the SERP becomes increasingly dynamic, marketers are under more pressure to explain performance changes. Drops in traffic or click-through rates may not always be due to campaign performance, but to changes on the page itself. Without visibility into what’s happening above or around your ads, adjusting strategy becomes guesswork.

The Search Landscape dashboard eliminates that uncertainty. It helps you identify which SERP formats are appearing more or less often, understand how your visibility in both paid and organic listings is shifting, and track when your competitors gain ground. You can also connect these insights directly to performance changes, making it easier to justify budget and optimise campaigns.

In short, it provides the context advertisers need to stay on top of Google’s ever-changing environment. Whether your paid ads are being buried by new features or rivals are moving up thanks to AI-generated content, Adthena’s Search Landscape gives you the tools to respond strategically.

Stay one step ahead of the chaos and keep your digital campaigns performing at their best – even as Google’s SERP continues to evolve.

How to respond: Strategic recommendations for advertisers

To remain visible and competitive in today’s changing search environment, marketers need to adapt their strategies thoughtfully.

One key approach is to optimise for visibility in areas that are less affected by AI Overviews. This often means focusing on long-tail queries, where AI features are either absent or less dominant, allowing your ads or organic listings more room to appear.

It’s also important to segment your brand-related and product-specific search terms. By doing this, you can better identify where AI Overviews are having the most impact and where your performance might be declining as a result.

Finally, using tools like Adthena’s Search Landscape can provide a much-needed advantage. These tools offer real-time insights into how the search results page is changing, helping you spot trends, shifts in competitor visibility, and new opportunities to strengthen your presence.