# AI overviews appear for 83% of branded searches

Digest AI · Marketing & Small Business · published 2026-10-02T11:33:46Z

Canonical: https://digestai.news/story/ai-overviews-appear-for-83-of-branded-searches

## Summary

ai overviews now appear for 83% of branded queries, potentially reducing clicks to brands’ own websites and giving third‑party sources like wikipedia, youtube and linkedin a bigger say in how a brand appears in search results. ahrefs analyzed 232.8 million us desktop google search‑result crawls from july to september 2026, consisting of 92.5 million branded‑keyword crawls and 140.2 million non‑branded‑keyword crawls. as of september 29th 2026, ai overviews appeared in 82.91% of the us desktop search results for branded keywords, up from 61.3% in july. the gap between branded and non‑branded queries narrowed from 12.2 percentage points in july to 5 points in september. in a sample of 100 brand‑name queries, 63 had an ai overview by september 30, 76.2% of which appeared in position one. only 3.4% of ai overviews explicitly mentioned competitors, and wikipedia led external citations at almost 72%. previous research found a 58% lower click‑through rate for the top‑ranking page when an ai overview was present, raising concerns that brands may lose control over their narrative in search results.

## Key points

- ai overviews appeared in 82.91% of branded queries as of september 29 2026
- 63 of 100 brand‑name queries had an ai overview by september 30, 76.2% in position one
- only 3.4% of ai overviews mentioned competitors; wikipedia led external citations at 72%

## Why it matters

ai overviews shift search results away from brand sites, reducing click‑through rates and allowing third‑party narratives to dominate, which can impact brand visibility and marketing strategy.

## Sources

1. [AI Overviews Currently Appear for 83% of Branded Searches](https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-on-branded-searches) (Ahrefs Blog, 2026-10-02)

Part of the developing story: [AI Code Wars From Hands To Jobs](https://digestai.news/thread/opinion-claude-code-can-handle-hands-but-not-the-human-eye-in-video-work) (7 stories)

## Cite

Digest AI, "AI overviews appear for 83% of branded searches", 2 October 2026, https://digestai.news/story/ai-overviews-appear-for-83-of-branded-searches

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