By the Mayab Media Team
"AI Overviews only hit informational searches. Our buyers search differently." We heard that a lot last year. It was half true then. It's flat wrong now.
What the study found
On October 21, 2026, Semrush published a study on AI Overviews and commercial search modifiers, written by Luke Harsel. They tracked 400 commercial keywords in banking, ecommerce and software, using U.S. desktop data every month from September 2025 to August 2026.
They looked at five kinds of buying searches:
- "Alternatives" searches
- "Best X for Y" searches
- Pricing and cost searches
- Reviews searches
- Brand vs. brand comparisons
The headline: AI Overviews showed on about 45.75% of these keywords in September 2025. By August 2026, that hit 88%. Weighted by search volume, it was 97.08%. In plain English, the busier the buying search, the more likely Google answers it with AI first.
Some other numbers that jumped out at us:
- Reviews searches went from 30.14% to about 90%. That's the biggest jump of the five.
- "Best X for Y" searches had the highest coverage, at 96.12%.
- Brand vs. brand started highest (63.41%) and is now above 86%.
- Ecommerce went from 32.62% to 85.11%.
- Ecommerce pricing searches went from 4.76% to 71.43%.
- All three industries now sit between 85% and 91%.
Why this hits your revenue
Think about the searches that make you money. "Best accounting software for small agencies." "Shopify vs WooCommerce." "Plantation shutters cost." "[Your brand] reviews."
Those used to be the searches where you won by having a good comparison page or pricing page. Rank well, get the click, make the case.
Now Google writes a summary first. The buyer reads someone's take on your product before they ever see your page. And who supplies that take? The Semrush piece points to third-party sources AI Overviews pull from, like YouTube and review sites.
So the question shifts. It used to be "do we rank?" Now it's "what does the AI say about us when someone is about to buy, and where did it learn that?"
The reviews number worries us most. Almost every "[brand] reviews" search now gets an AI summary. If your review profile is thin, old or mixed, that's what the summary reflects. Your star rating is basically your ad copy now.
What to do this week
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List your 20 money searches. Take your product or service and add the five modifiers: "alternatives," "best for," "cost/pricing," "reviews," and "vs [competitor]." Search each one in Google. Screenshot every AI Overview.
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Grade each answer. For each screenshot, write down three things. Are you mentioned? Is what it says correct? Which sources does it cite? This takes an hour and tells you more than most dashboards.
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Fix your pricing page. Ecommerce pricing searches went from almost no AI Overviews to over 71%. If your pricing is hidden behind "contact us," the AI will fill the gap with someone else's guess. Publish real ranges if you can. Say what's included. Update the date.
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Own your comparison pages. Write honest "[You] vs [Competitor]" and "[Competitor] alternatives" pages. Be fair. Say who the other option is better for. AI systems pull from pages that sound balanced. A pure sales pitch is easy to ignore.
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Work your review sources. Find out which review sites and videos the AI Overviews cite for your category. Then go get reviews there. A steady stream of recent, detailed reviews beats a burst of five-star one-liners.
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Make a short YouTube video for your top comparison. YouTube shows up as a source in many of these answers. A plain five-minute "how to choose between X and Y" video from your team can earn a citation where your blog post can't.
Our take
We'll be honest. This study tracks whether AI Overviews appear, not how many clicks they cost. Other research has looked at clicks, and the picture is mixed. But we don't need the click number to act. If Google is answering 9 out of 10 buying searches with a summary, you need to know what that summary says about you.
Our view is that the businesses that win here aren't doing anything magic. They have clear pricing, fair comparison pages and lots of recent reviews. They look like the obvious answer because they did the boring work.
The takeaway: AI now answers almost every buying search first, so make sure it tells your story correctly.
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