For the past two years, search results have been shifting and traditional organic clicks have steadily declined. When an AI summary takes over the top of the search results page  and pushes your brand out of view, it’s no surprise that your first thought may be: “Just how much traffic is this costing us?”

It’s a valid question, but it’s the wrong one. Our data suggests that focusing on traffic volume alone misses a massive shift in where your market’s money is moving.

Losing traffic isn’t always a loss. 

In the “old” world of search, you often paid (or optimised) for a lot of “noise”: clicks from people who were just looking for a quick definition or a simple fact, who were never going to buy or were just browsing.

How AI Overviews affect the search landscape

AI Overviews change that dynamic completely by handling that 'noisy' first step directly on the search page. Because these summaries satisfy the browsers’ intent, many visitors no longer need to click through to your site. 

From a business perspective, AI Overviews (AIOs) act less like a wall and more like a premium filter. 

AI Overviews as a premium filter

If someone searches "What is a mortgage?", they aren't necessarily ready to buy. They just want a definition. The AI answers that definition on the Google page. The user gets their answer and leaves.

The benefit: Your website doesn't get "cluttered" with low-intent traffic that would have never converted anyway. This is why the study says "losing traffic" isn't a problem—it was "noisy" traffic.

Once users show intent, AIOs act as a value intercept. The intercept happens when the query isn't just a simple definition, but a high-stakes decision and is triggered by searches you would have most likely paid high money for. 

AI Overview as value intercept

If someone searches "Best fixed-rate mortgages for first-time buyers", that is a "value" query. There is a lot of money at stake. The AI doesn't just give a definition; it synthesises advice, compares options, and builds trust.

The benefit: Even if the user doesn't click a link immediately, the financial value of their attention is currently "living" inside that AI box. If your brand is the one the AI is quoting to give that advice, you have "intercepted" that user's trust before they ever reach a website.

While at first this can look like "lost traffic", the reality is that the value hasn't disappeared. Yes, the AI has intercepted the traffic before it ever reaches your site. But that traffic has simply shifted into an on-page conversation that now holds the financial value of that user’s attention.

Consequently, the users who read an AI summary and still decide to click through to your site are no longer just "window shopping". By the time they arrive, they have already passed the initial research phase because they have been primed and educated by the AI. 

They aren't visiting your site to start their investigation; they are visiting to continue it or finish it. This makes them a “pre-qualified” visitor, far more likely to convert than a cold lead who clicked a result without any prior context.

Different objectives with AI Overviews 

In this new reality, the goal isn't getting as many clicks as possible; but rather, getting the right clicks: winning the value intercept. It's about ensuring that when the AI educates your customer, it’s using your brand’s authority to do it. We call this “answer equity”. This is the digital authority you earn when your brand is the definitive source the AI uses to educate the user.

As you might know, in business, authority isn’t just an abstract concept: it has a market price. Every time an AI provides an answer to a high-stakes question, it is occupying premium real estate that brands usually spend millions of dollars to control via advertising and optimisation. If an AI summary is using your brand's information, you are receiving the equivalent of a "premium advertisement" 🤑

Data study across 4 industries

To help marketers understand the scale of this shift, we conducted a data study across 4 key industries: e-commerce, B2B, finance and healthcare. We didn’t just look at search volume; we looked at the replacement cost of that attention to understand what is the dollar cost of the “trust” that currently sits inside those AI answers and  what it would cost to buy that same level of visibility through traditional advertising. 

Report highlights at a glance

Before we dive into the industry-specific data, here’s an executive summary of what’s happening to your search value:

• The study analysed four industries: e-commerce, B2B, finance, and healthcare, to determine the total dollar value of the attention currently sitting inside AI summaries. We found that across just these four sectors, over $12 million in monthly value is being intercepted by AI.
• E-commerce: E-com brands currently have a massive head start with a 36% inclusion rate in AI results. This puts you in the perfect position to capture customers during their research phase before the competition catches up.
• Banking: Banking faces the highest financial stakes with over $7 million in monthly value. AIOs specifically target high-cost, bottom-of-funnel keywords.
• B2B: B2B shows the highest ‘value density’. Nearly 20% of all search value is filtered through AI Overviews, and B2B brands are currently the most successful at winning these citations.
• Healthcare: With 1 in 5 searches triggering an AI overview, the focus for healthcare brands must be on closing the ‘authority gap’ to protect brand reputation.

Quick recap: What are AI Overviews again?

Think of AI Overviews as the search engine's way of doing the heavy lifting for the user. Instead of a list of links, it’s a synthesised answer sitting right at the top of the SERP. For your brand, it means your content (your blogs, your guides, your site) is being plucked and processed to give someone an instant summary. So it's about being the source that the AI trusts to answer the question before the user even clicks.

Key definitions

To understand the risks and opportunities for your business, we need to look beyond simple search volume. Let’s define the key metrics we discuss during this study: 

B2B: The ‘value density’ intercept

In the B2B sector, the shift toward AI-generated answers is fundamentally changing how complex products and services are discovered. Instead of a buyer clicking through multiple websites to compare software or enterprise solutions, Google is now using AI to synthesise these comparisons directly on the results page. For a B2B leader, this means that potential buyers are often forming their "shortlist" based on an AI summary before they ever visit your site.

Facts and figures for B2B:

Business analysis: High-stakes targeting

Within the B2B sector, we see the highest concentration of financial risk per search, what we are calling "value density". This metric explains why a relatively small amount of traffic (12.1%) carries such a disproportionately high financial weight (17.32%).

B2B shows the highest concentration of financial risk of any industry in our study. While the raw total CPC value is roughly $787k, the proportion of the market affected is staggering. The AIO share of value jumps to 17.32%, which is the highest value share of all four verticals we analysed.

This confirms that AI is heavily involved in the high-stakes "solution aware" phase of the B2B buyer journey. AI is not just answering simple questions; it is actively helping professionals evaluate complex solutions and choose between different vendors. The silver lining is that the commercial citation rate currently stands at a market-leading 41.90%. B2B content, often rich with data and definitions, seems to be exactly what the AI models like to read.

What this means for your bottom line: 

In the B2B sector, the stakes are higher on a per-search basis than in any other industry we studied. Because nearly 1 in 5 dollars of search value (17.32%) is now influenced by AI, optimising for these overviews is crucial.

The $787k AIO market value represents the "commercial investigation" phase where buyers form their shortlist. If you are not visible here, you are effectively absent from the most expensive and important part of the buyer's journey. AI answers now sit at the top of the results, which significantly lowers the click-through rate for the rest of the page. Failing to maintain your visibility allows competitors to intercept your leads before they ever reach your site. 

Capturing the value by securing category authority

We know that millions of dollars (specifically over $12 million in monthly value across these 4 verticals alone) are being intercepted by AI Overviews.

The data shows that the value is there. This isn't a signal to panic or to lose sleep over lost clicks, but rather a sign to change your strategy slightly. Think of it as a strategic pivot point. The brands that stop viewing AI as a traffic thief and start viewing it as a high-intent value filter are the ones who will succeed in this next era of search.

When you appear in an AI summary, you aren't just getting a link; you are securing a verified recommendation at the exact moment a customer is narrowing their choices.

So, how do you start intercepting that value back? While a full strategy requires a deep dive into your data, here are four immediate levers you can pull right now:

B2B buyers use AI to simplify complex procurement decisions. Your content must be the "source of truth" for the problems your business solves.

• Standardise the "executive summary": B2B whitepapers are often too high-level for AI to confidently summarise. Add a bulleted ‘Executive Summary’ at the top of your technical content to feed AI the exact, simple narrative you’d want displayed in a search result.
• Embrace simple language: B2B content is often too dense for AI to summarise accurately. Using clear, direct language ensures the AI doesn't "hallucinate" or misrepresent your service.
• Own the problem definition by answering the ‘unasked’ questions. Create educational content that defines the problem early (e.g., "how to reduce churn"). If the AI adopts your definition of a problem, your brand becomes the logical solution

Our tactic recommendation: Ungate high-value technical specs and pricing

In B2B, AI is already doing the heavy lifting by comparing software and creating shortlists. If you aren't in the AI summary, you are losing potential leads before you even know they exist.

• End the gatekeeping: AI cannot "read" or learn from content hidden behind a form. To be cited, you must move your key features, data, and pricing out of gated PDFs and directly onto your webpages.
• Speak the AI’s language: AI loves structured data like tables and comparison grids. Organise your service features and pros/cons into clear lists that an AI can easily synthesise into a recommendation.
• Focus on the "question chain": Buyers often ask a series of follow-up questions in AI mode. Ensure your site answers the "what's next" questions so you stay part of the conversation as the buyer moves closer to a decision.

Ready to build your roadmap?

Realising the full potential of AI Overviews requires a strategy that goes beyond quick fixes and looks at the bigger picture of your organic performance to ensure your brand maintains its authority as search changes.

At Precis, we help brands navigate these shifts and turn complex data into clear, actionable growth. If you’re looking for support in applying these insights to your business, or just want to discuss future-proofing your strategy, get in touch with our team today. 

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Study methodology: A “value-weighted” approach

This study was conducted based on Ahrefs data from websites covering large volumes within each industry in the Swedish market, ensuring the inclusion of as many keywords as possible within each sector. We also included non-market-leading Precis clients to establish a more reliable benchmark; by avoiding a sole focus on top-performing websites, we prevented skewing the efficiency rate of inclusion in AI Overviews (AIO). This approach accounts for the assumption that more authoritative websites may naturally achieve a higher efficiency rate of citation.

1. Data collection and diagnostic tools

The research was conducted using Ahrefs as the primary diagnostic tool to extract keyword performance and SERP feature data for the Swedish market.

• Regional targeting: Data was pulled for queries where the location in Ahrefs was set to Sweden, reflecting local search behaviour and market-specific search results.
• Sector segmentation: Keywords were aggregated into four primary industry verticals (B2B, healthcare, banking, and e-commerce) to identify sector-specific risks and opportunities.
• Data freshness: Search volumes are monthly averages, while keyword positioning and AIO presence reflect the status at the time of the crawl. CPC represents the estimated bid in US dollars for a given keyword in Google Ads. Because advertisers can raise or lower their bids at any time, these figures are treated as averages; they reflect the last registered CPC data in Ahrefs at the time of the study, as Ahrefs does not update this specific metric frequently.

2. Core definitions and value metrics

We established proprietary metrics to quantify the "value intercept" of AI Overviews.

• Valuable volume: Calculated as (monthly search volume × CPC). This acts as a proxy for commercial intent; a high search volume multiplied by a high CPC identifies keywords with higher business activity and most probably a higher turnover.
• AIO share of value: The percentage of an industry’s total "Valuable Volume" that is currently exposed to an AI Overview = AIO Market Value / Valuable Volume.
• AIO market value: The amount of valuable volume where AI Overviews are showing up in search results.‍
• Commercial citation rate: The share of AIO market value where the tracked websites are showing up inside the AI Overviews.