AI Overviews - Part 1: How Google's New Search Function Changes the Game for Businesses

The search landscape as we know it is currently undergoing a dramatic change. Google's new feature, AI Overviews, is not just a technical update – it's a paradigm shift that redefines how information is presented and consumed online. For businesses, this means a new era where strategies for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and content strategy need to be rethought from the ground up. The core of this change is that AI-generated answers and summaries are displayed directly in the search results, challenging the traditional pursuit of top rankings. Instead, it's now about becoming an undisputed and trusted source that AI systems can rely on.

We at Multiproduktion.se, with over 20 years of experience in creating powerful digital moving images, see this as a crucial development. Understanding how AI Overviews works is not only important for text-based content, but also highly relevant for how your visual communication strategies – your films, animations, and graphic productions – reach and create value. This article is the first in a series where we will guide you through this new search landscape, explain what the changes mean, and how you can best adapt your digital marketing to continue to achieve success.

The Traditional Search Landscape: A Look Back

From "ten blue links" to an interactive experience

Do you remember the time when a search result almost exclusively consisted of a list with ten blue links? That era is on its way to disappearing. Over the years, Google has successively introduced more interactive elements such as "featured snippets" and "knowledge panels" to provide faster answers. AI Overviews is the latest, and perhaps most revolutionary, step in this development towards a more dynamic and AI-assisted search experience.

What is Google's AI Overviews (formerly SGE)?

An introduction to the AI-generated summary in search results

Google's AI Overviews, previously known as Search Generative Experience (SGE), is a feature where artificial intelligence (AI) creates direct answers and summaries to the user's questions directly on the search results page. Instead of just seeing a list of links, the user often gets a pre-formulated text that compiles information from multiple sources.

Why AI Overviews mark a paradigm shift

This change is fundamental. It not only affects how users interact with information – they can get answers without clicking through to individual websites – but also how companies must relate to their digital presence. The focus shifts from chasing a high ranking in the traditional list to becoming an authoritative and reliable source that Google's AI chooses to use as the basis for its answers. It's about becoming part of the AI's knowledge base.

How AI Overviews Works Technically?

Generative AI, NLP and LLMs (Large Language Models) explained

Behind AI Overviews lies advanced technology. The core consists of large language models (LLMs), such as Google's own Gemini models. These LLMs use Natural Language Processing (NLP), which are techniques for understanding, interpreting, and generating text that resembles human language. Imagine an extremely advanced text robot that can read, understand, and summarize information from the entire web.

How AI understands complex and conversational search queries

Thanks to this technology, AI Overviews can handle significantly more complex and conversational search queries than before. Users can ask questions in a natural way, roughly as they would ask a human expert. The AI can perceive nuances, context, and even information "between the lines". This naturally places higher demands on the quality, depth, and precision of the content published on the web. Superficial or poorly structured material loses value when the AI becomes better at seeing through it.

Source Selection: How to Make Your Content Worth Citing?

Synthesizing information from multiple sources

AI Overviews creates its responses by retrieving and weighing together information from multiple different websites. The goal is to provide as complete and nuanced a picture as possible. The generated responses often include links, so-called citations, to the websites used as sources. Becoming such a cited source is the new currency in the search landscape.

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) – AI's way of retrieving fresh data

To ensure that the information is current and accurate, Google uses a technique called Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). This means that the AI does not just rely on its pre-trained knowledge (which may be outdated), but actively retrieves and integrates fresh information from the web when formulating its responses. This 'grounds' the responses in current data.

Why AI doesn't always choose top-ranked pages

Interestingly, it's not always the pages that rank highest in traditional organic search results that are chosen as sources for AI Overviews. A study by Authoritas, mentioned in the report "SEO in the AI search era", showed that a full 93.8% of the URLs cited in AI-generated responses did not match any of the URLs among the top ten organic results for the same search. This suggests that AI Overviews have the ability to identify and highlight unique and valuable content that may not have previously reached the top positions.

The importance of becoming a trusted source for AI systems

Becoming a cited source in an AI Overview is a new and extremely important form of visibility. It's no longer just about traditional ranking, but about creating content that AI systems deem valuable, reliable, and relevant. This requires exceptional accuracy, clarity, and providing unique insights, data, or perspectives. Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) become central concepts, which we will explore further in upcoming articles.

Which Search Queries Most Often Trigger AI Overviews?

Focus on complex, descriptive, and information-rich questions

AI Overviews tend to be activated more often for certain types of search queries. Generally, they are displayed for more complex and descriptive questions where the user is likely to need information from multiple sources to get a comprehensive answer. This can involve comparative questions (e.g., "which projector is best for large conference rooms?") or questions that require a compilation of information from different perspectives.

"Problem Solving" and "Specific Question" as common triggers

Information searches, often formulated as questions starting with "what is", "how do you", "why" or "what are the benefits of", are strong candidates for triggering an AI Overview. The report "SEO in the era of AI search" refers to a study by Authoritas that found that AI Overviews were particularly often displayed for search intentions related to "Problem Solving" (74% of cases) and "Specific Question" (69% of cases).

Long-tail keywords and conversational searches

Longer and more specific search phrases, so-called long-tail keywords, as well as conversational questions that resemble natural speech, are also important triggers. These often signal a more complex information need, which AI Overviews are designed to handle.

How AI Overviews handle sensitive YMYL areas (Your Money Your Life)

Google has indicated plans to display AI-generated results even for more niche queries within so-called YMYL-areas (Your Money Your Life), which includes topics such as loans, health, and financial issues. For these sensitive areas, Google acts with extra caution and places great emphasis on using information from particularly reliable and authoritative sources.

From Ranking to Authority: The New Goal for Companies

Why it's no longer just about being visible in a list

As we mentioned earlier, AI Overviews represents a shift. It's no longer enough to optimize for a high ranking in a list of links. The goal must now be to establish your company as an undisputed authority within your niche - a source that both users and AI systems trust.

Becoming an integral part of AI's knowledge base

When AI acts as an information intermediary, your website's primary role becomes providing the most accurate, well-structured, and authoritative information. It is this information that AI can then use as the basis for its generated responses. The ambition should be for your content to become an integral and natural part of AI's knowledge base.

What Does This Mean for Your Company's Digital Presence?

A first glimpse into the need for adaptation

The changes we describe are comprehensive and require companies to review and adapt their digital strategies. It involves everything from how you work with keyword analysis and content creation to technical SEO and how you build authority online.

For us at Multiproduktion.se, it is clear that this also affects how you should think about your visual communication. How can your films, animations, and infographics be optimized not just to engage people, but also to be understood and valued by AI systems? Can a well-made explainer video become a cited source in an AI Overview? The answer is yes, if it is correctly designed and presented. Creating content – regardless of format – that is "citable" becomes a key to success.

Next Step: Understanding the Effects on Traffic and Behavior (A Teaser for Part 2)

Brief mention of upcoming topics in the series

Now that you've had an introduction to what AI Overviews are and how they work, you might be wondering what concrete effects this will have on your website traffic and your customers' behavior. In the next part of this article series, we'll dive deeper into exactly this: how AI Overviews affect organic traffic, click-through rates (CTR), and what it means for your metrics. Don't miss it!

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the main difference between traditional search and search with AI Overviews?

  The biggest difference is that traditional search primarily presents a list with links to different web pages where you yourself have to search further for the answer. Search with AI Overviews aims to give you a direct, AI-generated answer or a summary directly in the search result, based on information from several sources. This can reduce the need to click further.

• Will AI Overviews completely replace the usual search results?

  It is unlikely that AI Overviews will completely replace the traditional organic search results, at least not in the near future. They will likely coexist, where AI Overviews are displayed for certain types of search queries (especially complex and information-rich) while the traditional list is still relevant for others. The development is ongoing.

• How does Google AI Overviews know which sources are reliable?

  Google AI Overviews uses a range of factors to assess the reliability of sources. This includes the source's relevance to the specific search query, its perceived expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T), as well as how well the information matches the user's underlying intent. The AI also uses techniques like RAG to retrieve fresh information and can identify authoritative content even if it doesn't necessarily rank highest in traditional search results.

• Is AI Overviews already active in Sweden?

  Google is rolling out AI Overviews globally, and the feature is becoming increasingly common in search results. Even if the exact rollout pace and visibility may vary geographically and over time, it's essential for Swedish companies to prepare for this becoming an increasingly integrated part of the search experience.

• How can my company start preparing for AI search?

  The first and most important step is to focus on creating high-quality, in-depth, and original content that clearly demonstrates your expertise and experience (E-E-A-T). Make sure your content is well-structured, answers users' questions, and adjust your keyword strategy to also cover more complex, conversational search queries. We will go through this in more detail in upcoming articles.

Conclusion

Google's AI Overviews are here to stay and they're reshaping the playing field for digital visibility. For businesses, it's no longer just about ranking high, but about becoming a trusted authority whose knowledge AI systems choose to highlight. This sets new demands, but also opens up new opportunities to reach out and build trust.

At Multiproduktion.se