AI Overviews are changing the way people find information in Google.
For years, SEO has been about ranking as high as possible in the traditional search results. That still matters. But the search results page is no longer just a list of links.
Google is now using AI Overviews to answer more complex questions directly in the search results, pulling information from different sources and presenting it in a summarised, easy-to-read format.
For brands, charities, care providers and service-led businesses, this creates a new challenge.
It is no longer enough to be visible.
You need to be useful, trusted, structured and easy for both users and AI systems to understand.
That is where AEO comes in.
AEO, or Answer Engine Optimisation, is the process of improving your content so it has a better chance of being selected, cited and surfaced in AI-led search results.
At Brand Ambition, we are already seeing that AEO is not just an SEO opportunity. For the right websites, it can become a conversion strategy.
What is the AI Overview?
An AI Overview is Google’s AI-generated summary that appears at the top of some search results.
It is designed to help users quickly understand a topic, compare options or answer a more complex question without needing to click through multiple websites first.
For example, someone searching:
“What care is needed after a stroke?”
or
“Is home care cheaper than a care home?”
may see an AI-generated response that summarises the key points, supported by links to source websites.
That matters because the websites included in those AI Overviews are being positioned as trusted sources.
They are not just ranking.
They are being selected.
The impact on traffic
There is a lot of concern around AI Overviews reducing organic click-through rates.
And that concern is valid.
Ahrefs analysed 300,000 keywords and found that when an AI Overview appeared in the search results, the click-through rate for the top organic result dropped by an average of 34.5%, particularly for informational searches where users could get the answer directly from Google without clicking through to a website.
This means traditional SEO reporting needs to evolve.
A drop in traffic does not always mean a drop in value.
In some cases, users are clicking less. But the users who do click may be more qualified, better informed and closer to taking action.
That is the important part.
AI Overviews can reduce low-intent visits, but increase the importance of high-intent visibility.
Our own AEO case study showed exactly this.
In a recent charity-sector project, a deeper answer-led resource page accounted for only 18% of views across the tracked topic area, but delivered 84% of key donation events and 86% of total donation revenue.
Organic traffic to the page converted at around 17%, compared with around 0.25% for the main donation page.
That is not just a traffic story.
That is a quality story.
The page worked because it answered the right question, at the right moment, on a website users already trusted.
Read the full case study here:
How AEO Turned a Deeper Charity Page into a High-Converting Donation Asset
Finding AI Overview keywords
The first step in AI Overview optimisation is not writing content.
It is finding the right questions.
AI Overviews are not triggered for every search. They tend to appear more often where Google believes a user needs a summarised, explanatory or multi-source answer.
This is why tools like SEMrush are so useful.
SEMrush allows you to review SERP features, including whether an AI Overview appears for a specific keyword. This means you can start building a content strategy around real search behaviour, rather than guessing.
A simple process for finding AI Overview opportunities
1. Start with your core service area
Begin with the services, topics or problems your audience cares about most.
For a care provider, this might include:
- Home care
- Live-in care
- Dementia care
- Respite care
- Care costs
- Care after hospital discharge
- Care home alternatives
2. Use SEMrush (or AHREFS) to review related keywords or Use Google Keyword Planner for Free Keyword Research
Look for search terms that show real user intent.
This is especially important for long-tail, question-led and comparison searches.
Examples might include:
- What care is needed after a stroke?
- How much does home care cost in the UK?
- Is live-in care better than a care home?
- What support does someone with early dementia need?
- How quickly can I arrange care locally?
3. Filter by SERP features
Within SEMrush, review which keywords trigger AI Overview results.
This helps you separate general SEO opportunities from AEO-specific opportunities.
You are looking for terms where:
- AI Overviews are already appearing
- Your website has topical relevance
- The query has commercial, emotional or decision-making value
- The searcher may need more than a simple answer
4. Group keywords into question clusters
Do not build one blog for every question.
Instead, group related questions into useful content hubs.
For example, a care provider could create content clusters around:
- Care costs and funding
- Choosing between care options
- Dementia care questions
- Hospital discharge support
- Local care availability
- Urgent care arrangements
This helps build topical authority.
One question might win a visit.
A system of connected answers builds trust.
5. Prioritise by intent, not just volume
AEO is not about chasing the biggest keyword.
It is about identifying the questions that matter most to your audience and your business.
A keyword with lower search volume but stronger decision-making intent can often be more valuable than a broad informational phrase.
6. Connect successful posts with conversion pages on your site
Once you have uploaded a few pages, monitor progress. Identify the key pages that are appearing in AI Overviews regularly. Then, once you spot an increase in traffic, connect these pages to conversion opportunities within the site.
This is where AEO starts to become commercially valuable.
If a blog post, guide or FAQ page is attracting visibility from AI Overviews, it should not sit in isolation. It needs to become part of a wider journey that moves the user from research to action.
You can do this by adding:
- Links to relevant case studies
- CTA buttons on the page
- Internal links to service pages
- Downloadable guides or resources
- Contact forms or enquiry prompts
- Links to pricing, funding or comparison pages
- Clear next-step sections, such as “Need help with this?” or “Speak to our team”
For example, if a care provider has a page ranking for “how much does home care cost in the UK?”, that page should link naturally to a cost guide, a funding advice page, relevant care services and an enquiry form.
The aim is not to make every answer-led page feel sales-heavy.
The aim is to make the next step obvious when the user is ready.
AI Overview visibility can win attention, but the website still needs to convert that attention into enquiries, downloads, donations or bookings.
Why AI Overviews need content and PR
AI Overview optimisation is not just an on-page content exercise.
Yes, the content needs to be clear, structured and helpful.
But that content also needs to be credible.
Google’s systems are designed to reward helpful, reliable, people-first content. In more sensitive sectors, such as care, healthcare, finance, legal or charity, trust matters even more.
This is where content and PR need to work together.
Strong AEO content should:
- Answer real user questions clearly
- Use expert insight
- Include evidence, data and examples
- Show genuine experience
- Link clearly to relevant service pages
- Be easy to understand
- Be structured with useful headings and FAQs
But PR strengthens the authority behind that content. Digital PR can help build external signals around your expertise, including:
- Expert commentary
- Relevant media coverage
- Links from trusted publications
- Data-led stories
- Thought leadership
- Sector-specific authority
This matters because AI Overviews are not just looking for words on a page.
They are looking for reliable answers from sources that deserve to be trusted.
For many businesses, the opportunity is not just to publish more content. It is to build a stronger evidence base around the content they already have.
Our freebie: AI Overview targets for care marketing
As part of our deep dive into AI Overviews, we have started building industry-specific AEO question banks using SEMrush data.
The first focuses on the care sector.
This includes high-intent questions across:
- Scenario-based care queries
- Cost and affordability queries
- Comparison queries
- Emotional and decision-making queries
- Local and action-based queries
These are real questions people are asking in search and AI tools.
For care providers, this creates a practical roadmap for content planning.
Instead of simply writing about services, you can start answering the questions families are asking before they make contact.
That includes questions like:
- What care is needed after a hospital discharge?
- How much does home care cost in the UK?
- Is home care safer than a care home?
- How do I know if my parent needs help?
- What are the best home care providers near me?
This is where AEO becomes commercially useful.
It connects content strategy to real decisions.
To save time, we used ChatGPT to create the image, however, we used the data from SEMRush to populate the image, checked the data against the original data bank. Each one of these terms has, or has had an AI overview.
How long does AI Overview optimisation take?
The honest answer is that it depends on the website.
AEO is not a magic switch.
You cannot publish one FAQ page and expect to dominate AI Overviews overnight.
But for websites that already have authority, expertise and a strong content base, results can sometimes happen faster than a traditional SEO campaign.
That is because AEO often works by improving the structure, clarity and usefulness of content that already exists.
You may already have the expertise.
You may already have the trust.
You may already have the pages.
The opportunity is to make them easier for users, search engines and AI systems to understand.
AEO tends to work best when:
- The website already has authority in its sector
- The business has genuine expertise
- The topic is closely aligned with the brand
- The page answers real questions clearly
- The content is supported by internal links, external trust signals and strong conversion pathways
For newer websites, AEO may take longer because authority needs to be built first.
For established websites, especially in sectors such as care, charity, professional services and healthcare, the opportunity can be much faster.
The key is prioritisation.
Start with the topics that already have visibility, authority and commercial value.
Then build from there.
Something to Share…
Final takeaway
AI Overviews are not the end of SEO.
They are the next evolution of it.
The brands that win will not be the ones that simply publish the most content.
They will be the ones that answer the right questions, in the right structure, with the right authority behind them.
That means AEO needs SEO, content, PR and conversion strategy working together.
Because visibility still matters.
But in an AI Overview world, being selected matters even more.
If you want to understand where your website could appear in AI Overviews, where your content gaps are, and which pages should be prioritised first then get in contact.
