The arrival of artificial intelligence to search engines has completely transformed SEO. It’s no longer just about appearing in the top results, but about understanding how AI interprets, selects, and presents information. At Nord Metric, we’ve learned that adapting doesn’t mean reinventing everything, but rather evolving the foundations of SEO toward a smarter, more semantic, and user-centered approach.
Google makes this clear in its own guidelines: AI features like AI Overview don’t require new formulas, but useful, trustworthy, and technically well-optimized content.
Based on this premise, these are the strategies we’ve validated to maintain relevance and visibility in the era of AI-driven SEO.
What is Google AI Overview?
Google AI Overview is a feature powered by language models like Gemini that generates instant summaries directly within the search engine. Instead of showing only standard links, Google can now synthesize complete answers at the top of the SERP (search results page).
This feature appears mostly for complex or informational queries, and its goal is to provide an immediate answer without requiring the user to click.
As a result, being cited as a source in AI Overview becomes a new form of visibility: a sort of AI-generated position zero.
Differences between organic ranking and being an AI Overview source
During our tests, we confirmed that appearing in the Top 3 organically doesn’t guarantee being cited by AI, and vice versa.
- Organic Position: Based on traditional ranking (Position 1–10), with snippet, title, URL, and meta description. Traffic depends on user clicks.
- AI Overview: Displays an AI-generated summary along with links to the sources used. These may include sites that don’t necessarily rank in the top organic positions.
In other words, AI Overview does not replicate traditional SEO. It’s a new visibility ecosystem where semantic context, topical authority, and content clarity matter more than position.
How it impacts SEO metrics
The emergence of AI Overview has generated mixed effects on key SEO metrics. At Nord Metric, we analyzed these changes in our own content and in that of several clients.
1. Impressions: the apparent growth
The number of impressions tends to increase. Every time content is cited or appears below an AI summary, Google Search Console records it as an impression—even if the user doesn’t click.
This can give the impression of growth, but it actually reflects visibility without interaction, which forces us to reinterpret this metric.
Graph: Growth trend in impressions on a blog-focused page
2. Clicks: the inevitable decline
CTR (Click-Through Rate) is the most affected indicator. When the user gets the answer directly from the summary, they rarely visit the source. A study by Ahrefs showed that the CTR of the organic Position 1 can drop by up to 35% if AI Overview appears above it.
Even if a site is cited in the summary, traffic is usually lower because the AI satisfies most of the user’s intent without sending them off the SERP.
3. Sessions: less volume, more quality
With fewer clicks, organic sessions also decrease, especially for informational keywords like “what is,” “how it works,” or “examples of.” However, we noticed something interesting: the quality of the sessions that do arrive improves.
Users who visit the website after reading the AI summary do so because they seek more depth, precision, or commercial intent. In our data, these sessions showed:
- Longer time on page
- Lower bounce rate
- More interactions per page
AI Overview, in a way, filters out superficial users and lets in those who truly need a complete answer.
Which keyword types are most affected?
The impact varies depending on search intent:
- Informational keywords: These are the most affected, since when users search for general queries like “what is a CRM” or “how does SEO work,” Google’s AI often provides an immediate answer within the summary.
- Transactional or brand keywords: These are more resilient. Generally, generative summaries do not appear for this type of query. Even when they do, CTR may improve if the brand is mentioned in the summary, since AI reinforces its authority and credibility.
Graph: Click trend in an ecommerce site
How to adapt your SEO strategy in the AI era
SEO evolution isn’t about fighting artificial intelligence, but understanding how to integrate it into our strategy. These are some actions we apply at Nord Metric that now form part of our methodology:
1. Use consistent structured data
Although Google does not require specific markup for AI features, it recommends that structured data match the visible text and align with the page’s purpose.
This helps models better understand the context and accurately link your content within AI summaries.
2. Prioritize high-intent keywords
At Nord Metric, we’ve identified the need to rethink content strategy by prioritizing mid- and lower-funnel topics that lead to concrete actions (form submissions, leads, purchases, contact, etc.).
Queries like “digital tools 2025” or “best accounting software” attract more qualified and engaged traffic, delivering greater business value.
3. Create useful and trustworthy content
Google prioritizes content that demonstrates Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust (EEAT). It doesn’t matter whether it’s created by humans or supported by AI, as long as it’s useful, original, and high quality. In contrast, shallow or automatically generated content without added value may be considered spam and is less likely to rank.
A study by Graphite showed that 86% of top-ranking articles on Google were written by humans, compared to just 14% generated by AI. At Nord Metric, we’ve confirmed that texts with original analysis, verifiable citations, and visible authorship are more likely to be selected for AI Overview.
4. Update content frequently
One of the most interesting observations we made is that articles several months old, when updated with fresh information, improved structure, and a more recent date, not only improve their ranking in Google, but also increase their chances of appearing in AI Overview summaries.
This is because Google’s AI prioritizes updated, relevant, and contextualized content over outdated information.
5. Maintain standard SEO best practices
Google has confirmed that there are no special technical requirements to appear in AI-powered features like AI Overview. The key remains ensuring that your site is properly crawled, indexed, and optimized under basic SEO principles: clear architecture, relevant metadata, and useful, accessible content.
What we learned at Nord Metric
Becoming a source for AI Overview doesn’t depend solely on SEO ranking. It requires comprehensive optimization of context, format, and authority. The content that performs best is that which answers complex questions clearly, in an updated and structured way, combining useful information with expert perspective.
We learned that the future of SEO won’t revolve solely around keywords or backlinks, but around semantic trust: the ability for AI models to recognize your content as truthful, accurate, and useful to users.
