2026-06-24. Matija Mesić.
Google's AI Overviews now dominate the top of the results page for a massive chunk of informational and commercial queries. Here's how to stay visible when the AI summary is the first thing users see.
An AI Overview is a generative summary that Google places above the organic results, built by its Gemini model from several ranking pages at once. It answers the query directly and cites the sources it drew from, which means visibility now depends on being cited rather than only on holding position one.
Cited pages almost always already rank in the top twenty for the query. Beyond that, Google favours pages that answer the question directly in the opening lines, use clear heading structure, carry visible question-and-answer sections and support all of it with structured data. Relevance of the answer matters more than raw domain authority.
No. Schema is not a ranking factor and does not guarantee citation. What it does is remove ambiguity about what a page means, which makes the page cheaper for a generative system to parse and quote correctly. It is a consistent characteristic of cited pages rather than a cause of citation.
Google Search Console reports AI Overview impressions inside standard Search results data, so watch for pages gaining impressions while clicks stay flat. Read that pattern carefully, because a page earning heavy AI Overview impressions with few clicks may still be building brand recall even as direct traffic falls.
SpecialistSEO. Matija Mesić, freelance SEO consultant. [email protected]