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: 

E-commerce: the window of opportunity

In online retail, AI Overviews are currently more about building trust (“winning the shortlist”) than driving traffic. Right now, Google is using AI to help shoppers do their homework, comparing products and finding the "best" options, before they ever hit a "Buy" button.

Facts and figures for e-commerce:

Business analysis: A quiet strategic window

On the surface, the value of roughly $585,000 might look small compared to other industries. However, this number is interesting because the volume (2.3%) and value (2.39%) are almost identical. This indicates that Google is not yet specifically targeting the most expensive "transactional" keywords in retail.

The most important takeaway is the 35.37% commercial citation rate. This is one of the highest success rates in our study. It shows that while Google is being conservative about showing AI for product searches, when it does show them, it focuses on brands that provide high-quality, trusted information.

What this means for your bottom line

The value of AI summaries in e-commerce is currently low in dollars, but high in opportunity cost. As an e-commerce brand, you have a unique chance to capture the customer during the research phase before the space becomes too crowded.

Because the commercial citation rate is high, winning this space is very efficient. It allows you to build brand trust with high-intent shoppers early in their journey. By the time they are ready to purchase, your brand is already the authority that helped them make their decision.

Capturing the value by influencing the shortlist

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:

In a zero-click environment, the goal is to be the primary recommendation when the user is still in the "consideration" phase. 

• Guide the decision journey by helping users choose the right products. Strengthen your buying guide pages to answer specific "how-to-choose" questions. This helps capture the user before they’ve even decided on a brand. 
• Optimise for agentic discovery by perfecting your product schema (price, availability, reviews and other structured data). This provides the raw data AI needs to build its "suggested products" lists.
• Capture high-intent reach by targeting ‘best of’ research queries. Focus on winning the research phase (e.g., “best running shoes for flat feet”) to influence purchases before users reach a product page. By providing the criteria for the decision, you influence the purchase before the user ever reaches a product page.

Our tactic recommendation: Optimise your product feeds

Google is currently being cautious with AI in shopping to protect its ad revenue, but this is the "calm before the storm". The goal here is to train the AI to recognize your products as the best options before the market becomes crowded.

• Supercharge your feeds: Don't just provide basic product info. Add rich data points to your Merchant Center feeds like common customer questions, specific product benefits, and details on why your items are better than competitors.
• Feed the LLMs: Use your product data to "train" the AI. Include details about why customers return products or the specific problems your products solve so the AI can use that information in its summaries.
• Don't wait for the click: Focus on educating the AI about your brand now. If the AI knows your brand’s value, you'll be the first choice when Google rolls out more advanced "agentic" shopping features where the AI buys on behalf of the user.

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.