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: 

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: 

Healthcare: The reputation value intercept

In the healthcare sector, the shift toward AI-generated answers is fundamentally changing the patient journey. Instead of a patient clicking through multiple medical sites to understand a symptom or treatment, Google is now using AI to synthesise these answers directly on the search page. 

For a healthcare leader, this means that the "first opinion" a patient receives is often an AI summary, making it critical that your brand is the authority behind that answer.

Facts and figures for Healthcare:

In the healthcare sector, the "value density" of AI is defined by its sheer reach. Unlike other sectors where value is concentrated in a few high-cost niche searches, healthcare is a high-volume landscape where AI has become the primary layer of the patient journey.

Google is not just answering basic informational questions; it is aggressively intercepting 17.1% of all industry searches. Financially, this translates to a massive $4.5 million in monthly market value being filtered through AI summaries. This confirms that the AI isn't just answering basic ‘what is a cold?’ questions; it’s intercepting valuable treatment and provider-related queries that turn clicks into cash.

However, the current commercial citation rate of 32.92% reveals a significant "authority gap". In an industry built entirely on trust and clinical safety, missing a citation nearly 67% of the time means that non-clinical or general informational sources are often leading the medical narrative. For healthcare brands, this gap represents a direct risk to patient acquisition and a missed opportunity to be the primary voice of authority during the decision-making phase.

What this means for your bottom line: 

In the healthcare sector, being invisible in AI carries significant financial risk. With AI acting as the primary filter for $4.5 million worth of high-intent queries, maintaining your presence in these summaries is a business necessity. Being absent here means losing influence during the most expensive and high-stakes portion of the funnel.

Because of the near 33% commercial citation rate, capturing high-intent interest through organic authority allows for premium visibility without the costs of an increasingly expensive ad market.

In health, the financial value is inextricably linked to brand safety and trust. Optimising for AI Overviews here helps ensure your brand is the authority educating the patient, preventing misinformation and cementing your status as a market leader.

Capturing the value by bridging the authority gap

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 healthcare, AI rewards trust and clinical credentials. You must prove your authority to the algorithm to secure the citation.

• Write for patients, not for doctors. Audit your H2 headers into question-style headings that mirror real questions. This could be as easy as changing complex medical terms like ‘Etiology’ to plain questions like ‘What causes X?’.
• Use direct answer sentences. Immediately follow your question-based headers with a concise, direct and concise, 1–2 sentence answer before expanding on the details. This makes it effortless for AI to cite you as the definitive medical source.
• Highlight your credentials. Explicitly mark up the author (MD/PhD) and the “reviewed by date” to give the AI the correct EEAT and clinical trust signals it needs to cite your experts over a forum. 

Our tactic recommendation: Rework clinical titles into patient-led questions

Healthcare has a massive "authority gap" where 67% of AI answers don't cite a brand. This is a huge opportunity to become the "first opinion" a patient sees, which is both a business and ethical necessity.

• Rework academic titles: Patients don't search for medical jargon; they search for symptoms. Rewrite your high-level academic titles into the actual questions patients ask (e.g., "Why does my back hurt when I sit?" instead of "Lumbar analysis").
• Double down on credibility (EEAT): AI prioritises safety. Use technical "signals" like correct schema markup, clear expert credentials for your authors, and "reviewed by" dates to prove to the AI that your information is safe to recommend.
• Protect the narrative: By being the cited expert, you prevent "AI hallucinations" and misinformation. This protects both your brand’s reputation and the patient's safety, while positioning you as the most trusted provider.

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. 

Get in touch

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.