Do Google AI Overviews change how customers find local businesses?

AI Overviews are the AI-written summaries Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the sources it drew on. They answer the question on the results page, which is why they reduce clicks to websites for many searches.

For a service business the question is which of your customers' searches trigger them. Someone typing "how much do veneers cost" or "do I need a lawyer after a minor car accident" is in a different place from someone typing "cosmetic dentist Columbia SC." AI Overviews treat those searches very differently.

Yes, on the searches where they appear. Pew Research Center analyzed the March 2025 browsing data of 900 US adults and found users clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits that included an AI summary, compared with 15% of visits without one. Users clicked a link inside the summary itself on just 1% of visits, and they ended their browsing session on 26% of pages with a summary versus 16% without. Google disputed the study, with a spokesperson calling its methodology flawed and its queries unrepresentative.

Ahrefs measured the same effect from the publisher side. Comparing Google Search Console data from December 2023 and December 2025 across 300,000 keywords, it found that an AI Overview correlated with a 58% lower average clickthrough rate for the top-ranking page, up from the 34.5% drop in its April 2025 study.

Mostly the research and question searches, not the ready-to-book ones. Whitespark's 2025 study ran 540 searches across six industries (plumbers, personal injury lawyers, dentists, optometrists, medical clinics and real estate agents) in Houston, Phoenix and Denver, and sorted them by intent.

• Pew's data points the same way: 8% of one- or two-word searches produced an AI summary, compared with 53% of searches of ten words or more and 60% of searches starting with a question word.
• Real estate was an outlier in Whitespark's data, with AI Overviews on as many as half of local-intent searches.
• Whitespark described its dataset as limited, so treat the percentages as direction, not precise rates for your market.

Your traffic picture likely splits in two. Searches where someone is ready to choose a provider still mostly run through the map pack and your Google Business Profile, so reviews, categories, hours and photos matter as much as ever. Searches where someone is still learning (costs, timelines, whether they need the service) increasingly get answered on the results page, so fewer people click through to your blog posts and FAQ pages.

That does not make those pages worthless. They are what AI Overviews draw on, and being one of the cited sources puts your name in front of someone early in their decision. A med spa whose page clearly answers "how long does Botox last" has a chance at that citation; one with a vague services list does not. Expect fewer visits from informational content and judge those pages by calls and bookings, not raw traffic.

Focus on being the business Google can confidently show for ready-to-book searches and quote for research searches.

• Keep your Google Business Profile complete and current: primary and secondary categories, services, hours, service areas, photos and a steady flow of recent reviews.
• Give each main service its own page with a direct answer near the top: what it is, who it is for, typical cost range if you can share one, and how to book.
• Answer the real questions customers ask on the phone, in plain language, with the answer in the first sentence or two under each heading.
• Use specific facts (credentials, years licensed, service areas, process steps) that a summary can quote accurately.
• Make sure Google can crawl and read the pages: fast loading, text in the page rather than inside images, and structured data for your business details.
• Track calls, forms and bookings by source so you can see whether lower traffic actually means fewer customers.

Look at leads by search type, not total website traffic. Google Search Console shows the queries that bring visits to your site; split them into ready-to-book searches (service plus city, your business name) and research searches (costs, how-to, should I). If clicks fell on research queries while impressions held steady, AI Overviews are a likely cause.

Then compare that with what reaches your team. Business Profile insights show calls, direction requests and website clicks from your profile. Your call tracking and CRM show which leads came from organic search. A personal injury firm might see blog traffic fall while intake calls from search hold level, which is a content reporting problem, not a demand problem. If calls and bookings fall too, the profile and service pages need attention first.

Worry less about clicks and more about whether you are visible at the moment of choice. Pew found that around two-thirds of the searches it studied ended without a click on a result, whether or not a summary appeared. Many local searches already ended on the results page before AI Overviews, with a call button or directions from the map pack. A call from your business profile is a good outcome even if your website never gets the visit.

Monvell's Marketing and Development teams build service pages and business profiles for both cases: clear answers that AI Overviews can cite, and complete profiles that win the ready-to-book search.