We dusted off the crystal ball
Every January, someone on a client call asks us the same question: “So what’s going to happen to our traffic this year?” We’ve been doing this for 20+ years. We watched Google kill the right rail ads, launch the Knowledge Graph and stuff the top of the page with shopping carousels. Each time, the panic was loud and the answer was the same: clicks moved around, and the brands that adapted did fine. UNTIL 2025-2026!
AI Overviews are the biggest shake-up yet. So we did what we always do. We pulled the best research we could find, compared it with what we see in our own clients’ accounts, and made some educated guesses about 2027.
Fair warning: the first half of this post is data. The second half is us having fun with a crystal ball. We’ll tell you which is which.
What the data says so far
Clicks drop when an AI Overview shows up
This part isn’t in debate anymore. Every major study lands in the same neighborhood.
- Pew Research (July 2025): people clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits when Google showed an AI summary, versus 15% when it didn’t. They clicked a link inside the summary itself about 1% of the time.
- Advanced Web Ranking (July 2026, US desktop): the #1 organic result earned a 20.0% CTR across all results pages, but only 9.7% when an AI Overview appeared. That’s roughly half.
- SparkToro (January to April 2026): 68% of US Google searches ended without a click, up from about 60% in 2024. AI Overviews showed on more than 20% of searches.
Getting cited changes everything
This is the part we get excited about. Seer Interactive’s 2026 update looked at 53 brands and 5.47 million queries, and found that being cited inside the AI Overview matters more than whether the AI Overview exists.
On informational searches across 2025:
| Organic CTR | Paid CTR | |
|---|---|---|
| No AI Overview | 3.35% | 19.75% |
| AI Overview, brand cited | 2.07% | 15.74% |
| AI Overview, brand not cited | 0.94% | 11.19% |
Cited brands earned more than twice the organic clicks of uncited brands. Uncited brands saw organic CTR fall 67% over 2025. Ouch.
There’s a little good news, too
Seer also saw organic CTR on AI Overview searches bottom out at 1.31% in December 2025, then bounce back to 2.36% by February 2026. Still below where it was, but moving in the right direction. Meanwhile, paid CTR on searches with an AI Overview crept up (14.6% to 16.2%), while paid CTR on searches without one slid.
AI Overviews aren’t everywhere (yet)
Seer found AI Overviews on 36% of informational searches, but only 8% of commercial and 5% of transactional ones. Comparison searches (“X vs Y”) triggered them 95% of the time. Single-word searches, 27%. And AI Mode? Google says it passed 1 billion monthly users, but SparkToro found only 0.34% of searches moved into AI Mode in early 2026. Lots of people trying it. Not many living there. Google has been rolling out ads inside AI Mode in more markets this year, though, which tells you where they expect it to go.
Our 2027 projections ✨
Crystal ball time. These are our estimates, based on the trends above and what we see in client data. They are not guarantees, and we reserve the right to laugh at ourselves next November.
| What we’re watching | Where it is now | Our 2027 projection |
|---|---|---|
| Zero-click Google searches (US) | 68% (early 2026) | 70% to 74% |
| Searches showing an AI Overview | 20%+ (early 2026) | 25% to 35% |
| #1 organic CTR when an AI Overview shows (desktop) | about 10% (July 2026) | 8% to 12% |
| Organic CTR gap, cited vs. not cited | about 2.2x (2025) | 2.5x or wider |
| Share of searches in AI Mode | 0.34% (early 2026) | still under 5% |
1. Zero-click keeps climbing, slowly
Zero-click rose about 7.5 points in two years. We expect it to keep climbing, but more slowly, landing somewhere between 70% and 74% in 2027. Google still needs clicks to keep publishers, advertisers and regulators happy.
2. AI Overviews move into shopping territory
Right now they mostly show up for “how” and “what” questions. We think 2027 is the year they spread further into commercial searches like “best CRM for small business” and “[brand] vs [brand].” That’s where it stops being a traffic story and starts being a revenue story. If your business depends on comparison searches, this one’s for you.
3. Position #1 stops being the trophy
With an AI Overview on the page, ranking #1 already gets you about half the clicks it used to. In 2027, we expect most teams to report AI citations right next to rankings. Maybe even above them.
4. The rich get cited-er
AI engines reward brands that are already trusted and mentioned around the web. We expect the gap between cited and uncited brands to widen. The brands working on this now will be very hard to catch in 2027.
5. Paid search gets more AI-shaped
Paid CTR on AI Overview pages has been rising, and Google keeps putting ads inside AI answers. We expect more budget to follow, more automated ad formats, and higher costs on the searches where AI Overviews don’t show up, because everyone will fight over them.
6. Fewer clicks, better clicks
Here’s our favorite prediction. The people who click through after reading an AI answer already know a lot. They’ve done their homework. We expect traffic to keep slipping for many sites, while conversion rates from organic and AI referrals go up. Vanity metrics go down the drain. Leads stay.
What to do about it (before 2027 shows up)
Find out where you’re cited. Make a list of the 20 to 30 questions your buyers ask, run them in Google, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, and track who shows up. Monthly. We built a simple prompt tracker for ourselves and it’s become our favorite spreadsheet.
Write the answer AI wants to quote. Clear headings phrased as questions. A direct answer in the first sentence or two. Real numbers, real examples, real authors with real bios.
Show up where AI looks. Reviews, industry publications, Reddit threads, YouTube, partner pages. AI engines trust what other people say about you.
Watch your comparison pages. If AI Overviews trigger on 95% of “X vs Y” searches, those pages need to be the best, most honest comparisons on the internet.
Rethink your reporting. If your monthly report leads with sessions, it’s going to look sad in 2027. Lead with leads, revenue, conversion rate and AI visibility instead. RIP VANITY METRICS
Pair paid and organic. Seer’s data shows cited brands earn better paid CTR, too. Look at which AI Overview searches you’re cited in, and which ones you’re paying for, and make them work together.
Want to know where you stand right now? Our AEO consulting team offers a free AI visibility snapshot. We’ll show you which AI answers mention you, which ones don’t, and where the quickest wins are.
Get your free AI visibility snapshot →
See you next November, when we grade our own homework. ✶