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 if you happen to’re a enterprise proprietor with out an in-house SEO group, it raises simply as many questions as solutions, together with:
- Is my current 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 want 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 publish 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 knowledgeable 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 quick)
- How to indicate up in AI Overviews with SEO 2.0
- Go from rating on Google to being the reply Google offers with Mint Position
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Wondering tips on how to present up in AI Overviews? Book a no-cost consultation with the Mint Position group, and we’ll present you ways 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 be larger 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 taking place 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 quick, we’re seeing an enormous 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 consequence 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, basically altering SEO within the course of.
Google’s first place was 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 patrons kind informational queries, AIOs matter enormously. If their search has extra business intent like “buy [product]”, then much less so.
What Google’s new information says (and the place it falls quick)
On May 15, 2026, the primary official Google guidance on optimizing for AI search appeared on-line.
First, we must always observe 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 via a narrower lens.
That slim lens issues greater than you’d suppose: 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 indicators for content material creators immediately.
Besides, who higher to inform you tips on how to win on Google than Google?
The information lists clear content material stipulations 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 sensible 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 might 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 website 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 value a re-examination, 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 all the time been specific about gameable indicators up to now.
“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 mistaken – removed from it. But it in all probability isn’t giving us the complete 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 seem like? At Mint Position, we name it SEO 2.0, and the following part covers how you should utilize 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 first step.
Without this, you received’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 complete image of what it takes immediately.
The three layers of SEO 2.0
1. Traditional SEO
This first layer is all the pieces we’ve simply walked via: the SEO prerequisites (crawlable hyperlinks, technical SEO, people-first, bottom-of-the-funnel content, and so on.) which have all the time been essential.
Get these mistaken and nothing else issues – you merely received’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 displaying up in an AI Overview really isn’t in your web page, however on different websites.
Ahrefs’ study of 75,000 brands discovered a surprising 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 kinds the backbone of our GEO pillar, together with work that will get you talked about throughout the online, together with knowledgeable contributions and digital PR, like visitor posting and conventional press releases.
These feed each AIOs and different AI instruments on the similar time – each sorts of serps might use completely different retrieval methods, however they’re on the lookout for the identical factor: manufacturers that the online takes significantly.
“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 essential factor to level out right here. Google warns about utilizing “inauthentic mentions”, or shopping for them from low-cost directories. This flags the spam methods of each main AI platform, which positively received’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 overlaying the entire matter cluster.
They name this the “Query fan-out” and content material that makes it into this fan is 161% extra prone to be cited than pages that solely rank for the preliminary search time period, based on search consultants 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 — which 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 patrons really search, offers AI engines the verbatim raise factors they should embody your web page in an Overview.
This can 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 might help) offers Gemini cleaner materials to raise. It’s not rewriting for machines, however merely writing extra clearly.
Practitioners operating 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 fee moved from 1 in 20 queries to 1 in 8 after the shift, despite the fact that Google’s official steerage nonetheless pushes complete content material.
The frequent 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 all the time favored this kind of 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 individual with actual experience behind the phrases.
Structured information performs a task right here, too. An AI-specific schema will not be obligatory, 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 value conserving, as they assist AI methods join your content material to verified entities, authors, and publication dates.
Go from rating on Google to being the reply Google offers with Mint Position
There’s now an uncomfortable fact about rating first on Google: most of your audience received’t click on in your blue hyperlink anymore.
You will, nevertheless, stand a very good likelihood of showing within the AI Overview above you, particularly if you happen to 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 firms for years, lengthy earlier than Google confirmed what we already knew of their current replace. That is, displaying up in AI search remains to be constructed on SEO – it simply doesn’t finish there.
With our SEO 2.0 strategy, our companions are already displaying up within the AI Overviews that their rivals are attempting 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 all the time constructed on, together with expert-led content material and journalistic SEO, occur to be precisely what AI search rewards.
The manufacturers that learn to present up in AI Overviews now will personal the reply for years. The relaxation will hold 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 tips on 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 tips on 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 giant language fashions parse your website sooner and perceive your enterprise higher.
Like XML sitemaps, it’s not a rating sign, but it surely’s a fast and sensible 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 convey 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 visitors, and also you’ll then have the ability to see how a lot 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 methods. These begin at round $25/month.
Will AI Overviews kill my natural 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 rivals, and AI-driven referral visitors sometimes converts at greater 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 couple of weeks.
- The off-page layer (model mentions, topical depth, digital PR) sometimes takes as much as six months.
The manufacturers successful AIOs immediately began this work 12 to 18 months in the past.
Also value understanding: 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 if you happen to drop out of 1: constant presence over weeks issues greater than any single snapshot.
