BLOG·GEO & SEARCH STRATEGY·7 min read

AI Overviews Now Sit on 88% of Buying Searches. Here’s How to Check Yours.

A year ago, Google mostly kept AI answers away from shopping searches. Now they sit on top of almost all of them. Here is what changed, where the clicks went, and a 30-minute test to see where your store stands.

On October 21, Semrush published a year of data on Google’s AI Overviews across 400 commercial keywords. Coverage went from about 46% of those keywords to 88%. Ecommerce keywords went from 33% to 85%. The same day, Search Engine Land reported data from 100 websites showing that ChatGPT sends a tiny share of the traffic Google does, but the people it sends buy far more often. Put together, the buying questions are now answered before anyone clicks, and the few clicks AI sends are worth a lot.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ✓ Google showed an AI Overview on 88% of 400 tracked commercial keywords in August 2026, up from 45.75% a year earlier (Semrush, US desktop).
• ✓ Ecommerce keywords went from 32.62% to 85.11%. “Best X for Y” searches now show an AI Overview 96% of the time.
• ✓ ChatGPT sent traffic equal to 0.62% of Google organic across 100 sites, but its visitors converted at 13.8% against 3.02%.
• ✓ Google organic still drove 27 times more conversions than all AI assistants combined, so Google stays your main channel.
• ✓ Shopping agents are arriving: Google’s Universal Cart started rolling out in the US on October 15. Accurate product data and consistent business facts are what they read.

What changed: AI Overviews moved into shopping searches

Semrush tracked the same 400 commercial keywords in banking, ecommerce and software every month from September 2025 to August 2026. The share showing an AI Overview went from 45.75% to 88%. Weighted by search volume, it reached 97.08% in August. Almost every high-volume buying search in the sample now starts with an AI answer.

The biggest jumps are in the searches stores care about most:

Two cautions. This is US desktop data on a fixed set of keywords, so it describes buying searches, not every search. And an AI Overview changes who gets the click: the sources the answer cites sit right in front of the reader. Being one of those sources is now the goal for every buying keyword you care about.

Where the clicks go now: ChatGPT is small, but its visitors buy

Marie Haynes analyzed 12 months of Google Analytics 4 data from 100 websites, more than 145 million sessions, and Search Engine Land reported the results on October 21. ChatGPT sent traffic equal to 0.62% of Google organic traffic. All AI assistants together came to 0.73%.

The interesting part is what those visitors did. On the 55 sites that track conversions, ChatGPT visitors converted at 13.8%. Google organic visitors converted at 3.02%. Google organic still drove 27 times more conversions than all the AI assistants combined, because it sends so many more people.

One more detail from the same report: ChatGPT referrals across these sites stopped growing quickly in August 2025 and have declined since. Treat AI referrals as a small, warm channel worth measuring, and keep Google as the main one.

How to check your AI visibility in 30 minutes

You don’t need a tool for a first read. Block out half an hour and do this:

1. List 10 buying searches. Use the ones a customer types just before buying: best “product” for “use”, “product” reviews, “your brand” vs “competitor”, “product” alternatives.
2. Search each one in Google in a private window. Note whether an AI Overview shows and which sites it cites. Is your store one of them? Is a competitor?
3. Ask ChatGPT and Gemini the same questions in plain words, the way a customer would. Write down which stores and brands they name.
4. Check Google Analytics 4. In Reports, open Traffic acquisition and filter the session source for chatgpt.com, gemini.google.com, perplexity.ai and copilot.microsoft.com. That is your AI referral baseline.
5. Check Search Console. Compare October 20 to 22 with the week before. Rankings moved on those days and Google has not confirmed an update, so look before you change anything.

If your store is missing from most of the 10 answers, you have found the gap. Start with the pages those answers draw from: clear comparisons, honest review summaries, and a short, direct answer near the top of each product or category page.

Next up: websites built for agents as well as people

AI Overviews answer the question. The next step is AI that acts on the answer. On October 15, Google started rolling out Universal Cart in the US: one cart across Search and the Gemini app that holds products from different retailers, tracks prices and stock, and checks out through Google Pay or sends the shopper to the retailer’s site. It runs on Google’s Shopping Graph, more than 60 billion product listings, and launched with retailers including Nike, Sephora, Target, Walmart and “many Shopify retailers.” Retailers stay the seller of record.

On October 20, Google also added small-business tools to the Gemini app that connect to Shopify, Wix, Google Business Profile and other tools owners already use. Both point the same way: more of the shopping journey will run through software that reads your store for the customer.

What an agent needs from your site

Google’s guidance for AI features is plain: there is no special schema, AI text file or markup you need to add. It asks for the basics done properly. For a store, that comes down to four jobs:

• A clean product feed. Full titles, prices, stock, shipping times and attributes in Merchant Center. Google’s fast-shipping label now needs delivery in 3 days or less in the US and Australia.
• Text an agent can read. Specs, sizes, materials and policies on the page as text, not only inside images.
• Structured data that matches the page. Product, offer and review markup that agrees with what a shopper sees.
• Crawl access. Check robots.txt and your CDN or firewall settings so search crawlers aren’t blocked by accident. We’ve seen Cloudflare block Googlebot without the owner knowing.

Your knowledge graph: the same facts everywhere

Search engines and AI assistants build a picture of your business from every place it appears: your site, Business Profile, Merchant Center, marketplaces, review sites and social profiles. That connected set of facts is what SEOs mean by a knowledge graph. When your name, address, products and prices match everywhere, your business is easy to recognize and easy to quote. When they disagree, the assistant has to pick one.

Start with three checks. Your business name and contact details are identical on your site and your Business Profile. Your Organization markup lists your real social and marketplace profiles under sameAs, with no empty values. And your About page names the real people behind the store.

Planning a new site? Build it AI-friendly from day one

If a redesign or platform move is already on your list, this is the cheapest moment to get it right. A migration changes URLs, product data, structured data and internal links all at once, which is exactly when rankings are easiest to lose. Plan for AI visibility in the same project: keep the URLs that earn citations, carry the structured data across, and test AI answers before and after launch.

What to do this week

1. Run the 30-minute check above and save the results.
2. Fix the first page on your list where a competitor is cited and you aren’t.
3. Open Merchant Center and confirm titles, prices, stock and shipping times are correct.
4. Set up an AI referral view in GA4 so you can watch the channel over time.
5. If your store runs on WordPress, WooCommerce or Magento, ask your host whether the October 21 PHP security patches are applied.

Related reading: what to do when 60% of searches end without a click, the SEO to GEO migration guide and how to choose the right CMS before you migrate.

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REFERENCES & FURTHER READING

1. Semrush, AI Overviews on commercial keywords (Oct 21, 2026): https://www.semrush.com/blog/ai-overviews-commercial-modi…
2. Search Engine Land, AI Overviews nearly double on commercial keywords: https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-overviews-nearly-d…
3. Search Engine Land, ChatGPT sends less than 1% of Google’s traffic: https://searchengineland.com/chatgpt-sends-less-than-goog…
4. Search Engine Land, Google launches Universal Cart: https://searchengineland.com/google-launches-universal-ca…
5. Google, new Gemini tools for small business owners: https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/gemini-app…
6. Google Search Central, AI features and your website: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-f…
7. Search Engine Roundtable, Merchant Center fast-shipping days by country: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-merchant-center-fast-…
8. Search Engine Roundtable, ranking volatility October 2026: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-volati…